ARE YOU READY FOR INTERNET OF THINGS(IoT)?

Most likely some of you must have heard about the term IoT.

What is IoT? The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to the internet, collecting and sharing data. Thanks to cheap processors and wireless networks, it's possible to turn anything, from a pill to an aeroplane to a self-driving car into part of the IoT. This adds a level of digital intelligence to devices that would be otherwise dumb, enabling them to communicate real-time data without a human being involved, effectively merging the digital and physical worlds.

Pretty much any physical object can be transformed into an IoT device if it can be connected to the internet and controlled that way from anyplace or anywhere.

A lightbulb that can be switched on using a smartphone app is an IoT device, as is a motion sensor or a smart thermostat in your office or a connected streetlight. An IoT device could be as fluffy as a child's toy or as serious as a driver-less truck, or as complicated as a jet engine that's now filled with thousands of sensors collecting and transmitting data back to make sure it is operating efficiently. At an even bigger scale, smart cities projects are filling entire regions with sensors to help us understand and control the environment.

How big is the Internet of Things?

Big and getting bigger -- there are already more connected things than people in the world. Analyst Gartner calculates that around 8.4 billion IoT devices were in use in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and this will likely reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on IoT endpoints and services will reach almost $2tn in 2017, with two-thirds of those devices found in China, North America and Western Europe, said Gartner.

Out of that 8.4 billion devices, more than half will be consumer products like smart TVs and smart speakers. The most-used enterprise IoT devices will be smart electric meters and commercial security cameras, according to Gartner.

What are the benefits of the Internet of Things for business?

The benefits of the IoT for business depend on the particular implementation, but the key is that enterprises should have access to more data about their own products and their own internal systems, and a greater ability to make changes as a result. Manufacturers are adding sensors to the components of their products so that they can transmit back data about how they are performing. This can help companies spot when a component is likely to fail and to swap it out before it causes damage. Companies can also use the data generated by these sensors to make their systems and their supply chains more efficient, because they will have much more accurate data about what's really going on."With the introduction of comprehensive, real-time data collection and analysis, production systems can become dramatically more responsive,

What is the Industrial Internet of Things?

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 are all names given to the use of IoT technology in a business setting. The concept is the same as for the consumer IoT; to use a combination of sensors, wireless networks, big data and analytics to measure and optimise industrial processes. 

If introduced across an entire supply chain rather than just individual companies the impact could be even greater with just-in-time delivery of materials and the management of production from start to finish. Increasing workforce productivity or cost savings two potential aims, but the IIoT can also create new revenue streams for businesses; rather than just selling a standalone product for example like an engine, manufacturers can sell predictive maintenance of the engine too.

What about Internet of Things security?

Security is one the biggest issues with the IoT. These sensors are collecting in many cases extremely sensitive data -- what you say and do in your own home, for example. Keeping that secure is vital to consumer trust, but so far the IoT's security track record has been extremely poor. Too many IoT devices give little thought to basics of security, like encrypting data in transit and at rest.

The IoT bridges the gap between the digital world and the physical world, which means that hacking into devices can have dangerous real-world consequences. Hacking into the sensors controlling the temperature in a power station could trick the operators into making a catastrophic decision; taking control of a driverless car could also end in disaster.

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• Internet of Things security: What happens when every device is smart and you don't even know it?

nternet of Things and big data analytics

The IoT generates vast amounts of data: from sensors attached to machine parts or environment sensors, or the words we shout at our smart speakers. That means the IoT is a significant driver of big data analytics projects because it allows companies to create vast data sets and analyse them. Giving a manufacturer vast amounts of data about how its components behave in real-world situations can help them to make improvements much more rapidly, while data culled from sensors around a city could help planners make traffic flow more efficiently.

In particular, the IoT will deliver large amounts of real-time data. Cisco calculates that machine-to machine connections that support IoT applications will account for more than half of the total 27.1 billion devices and connections, and will account for five percent of global IP traffic by 2021.

• Ten examples of IoT and big data working well together
• The internet of things and big data: Unlocking the power
• Sensor'd enterprise: IoT, ML, and big data (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

Internet of Things and the cloud

The huge amount of data that IoT applications generate means that many companies will choose to do their data processing in the cloud rather than build huge amounts of in-house capacity. Cloud computing giants are already courting these companies: Microsoft has its Azure IoT suite, while Amazon Web Services provides a range of IoT services, as does Google Cloud.

How do Internet of Things devices connect?

IoT devices use a variety of methods to connect and share data, although most will use some form of wireless connectivity: homes and offices will use standard wi-fi or Bluetooth Low Energy (or even Ethernet if they aren't especially mobile); other devices will use LTE or even satellite connections to communicate. However, the vast number of different options has already led some to argue that IoT communications standards need to be as accepted and interoperable as Wi-Fi is today. 

One area of growth in the next few years will be the use of 5G networks to support IoT projects. 5G offers the ability to fit as many as one million 5G devices in a square kilometre which means that it will be possible to use a vast number of sensors in a very small area, making large scale industrial IoT deployments more possible. The UK has just started a trial of 5G and the IoT at two 'smart factories'.

One likely trend is that, as the IoT develops, it could be that less data will be sent for processing in the cloud. To keep costs down, more processing could be done on-device with only the useful data sent back to the cloud -- a strategy known as 'edge computing'. This will require new technology - like tamper-proof edge servers that can collect and analyse data far from the cloud or corporate data center.

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• Edge, core, and cloud: Where all the workloads go
• 5G and the IoT: The UK's first smart factory just switched on

IoT data and artificial intelligence

IoT devices generate vast amounts of data; that might be information about an engine's temperature or whether a door is open or closed or the reading from a smart meter. All this IoT data has to be collected, stored and analysed. One way companies are making the most of this data is to feed it into artificial intelligence (AI) systems which will take that IoT data and use it to make predictions.

For example, Google is an AI in charge of its data center cooling system. The AI uses data pulled from thousands of IoT sensors which is fed into deep neural networks, which predict how different choices will affect future energy consumption. By using machine learning and AI Google has been able to make its data centers more efficient and said the same technology could have uses in other industrial settings.

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