Defining the ‘Internet of Things’
Internet of Things is a concept of connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet or to each other. It is a giant network of connected “things” or devices, which also includes people. The relationship is between people-people, peoplethings, and devices-devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a computing concept that describes a future where everyday physical objects will be connected to the Internet and be able to identify themselves to other devices. The new rule for the future is going to be, “anything that can be connected, will be connected.” What if the wearable device you used in the workplace could tell you when and where you were most productive and shared that information with other devices that you used while working? On a broader scale, the IoT can be applied to things like transportation networks“smart cities” which can help us reduce waste and improve efficiency for things such as energy use; thus helping us understand and improve how we work and live. The reality is that the IoT allows for virtually endless opportunities and connections to take place, many of which we can’t even think of or fully comprehend the impact of today.
The IoT also opens up companies all over the world to more security threats. Then we have the issue of privacy and data sharing. This is a hot button topic even today so one can only imagine how the conversation and concerns will escalate when we are talking about billions of devices being connected.
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Another issue is that many companies are specifically going to be faced with is the massive amount of data that all these devices are going to produce. Companies need to figure out a way to store, track, analyze, and make sense of the vast amounts of data that will be generated. The IoT is note worthy because an object that can represent itself digitally becomes something greater than the object by itself. No longer does the object relate just to you, but is also connected to surrounding objects and database data. When many objects act in unison, they are known to have “ambient intelligence�. Its initial use has been attributed to Kevin Ashton, an expert on digital innovation. "If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things, we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best".
IoT describes a world where just about anything can be connected and communicated in an intelligent fashion. In other words, with the Internet of Things, the physical world is becoming one big information system.
Generally speaking, IoT refers to the networked interconnection of everyday objects,which are often equipped with ubiquitous intelligence. IoT will increase the pervasive quality of the Internet by integrating every object for interaction via embedded systems, which leads to a highly distributed network of devices communicating with human beings as well as other devices.
Security remains one of the most important issues that baffle the development and applications of IoT. The paper, ‘An integrated scheme based on service classification in pervasive mobile services’, deal with how to protect the user’s security in prevalent mobile contexts. To address this issue, the authors propose a trust model in which the billing or trust operator works as an agent to provide trust authentication for all service providers.
• In the paper ‘Technology classification, industry, and education for Future Internet of Things’, Ning and Hu present a vision on the worldwide rapid development of IoT. They propose two models for future IoT. A dimension model is established to classify the complicated IoT technologies, and a layer model is built for future IoT system architecture. They argue that IoT is a new stage of intelligentization and informatization development. With regard to IoT education, they discuss the problem of setting IoT as a major discipline in college and give some suggestions. • The Internet of Things presents two opportunities for IT says Chriss Curran, Chief Technologist and Principal in the advisory practice at PWC. “The first requires the CIO to insert himself into the product design and management process,” he says. “The second is a new discussion for the CIO to initiate.” One concerns product instrumentation, the other is about “instrumenting” the business itself allowing us to understand better, analyse and make decision about the way the business processes perform. Internet of things set to be driven by consumer market, where the number of smart “things” and everyday products equipped with IP addressable sensors
Gartner research estimate that 26 billion IoT-ready products will be available by 2020. IoT includes any connected device or software that can sense and that you can control and use to exchange data according to Hung leHong, a Gartner analyst. Some IoT products embedded in corporate systems and processes allow for companies to find new ways to improve productivity. “Have to manage the data, manage the networks, and have multiple layers of security in place to allow access to the people and things that need access” says Colbert. IT executives should also understand how IT can play a critical role in enabling the technology, operationalizing it and securing it. Rethinking the internet of things- a scalable approach to connecting everything. Conventionally, data networks have been over-provisioned; that is, built with more capacity than is typically required for the amount of information to be carried. Even the nominally “best effort “traditional Internet is massively over-provisioned in many aspects. Within a few years, devices on the IoT will vastly outnumber human beings on the planet and the number of devices will continue to grow. Billions of devices worldwide will form a network unprecedented in history. Consider smartphones, for example, which are expected to become the most common computing and communications platforms in the world.
These devices incorporate the processors, memory, and human interfaces necessary for traditional networking protocol stacks (typically IPv6 today, the human interfaces essential for control, and an infrastructure for management (unique addresses, management servers, and so on). The prices and profit margins of these devices mean that it is cost-effective for manufacturers (and governments) to keep track of addresses, feature sets, software revisions, and so on. But the typical IoT data flow will be nearly diametrically opposed to this model. Machine-to-machine communications require minimal packaging and presentation overhead compared to human-machine communication. As noted previously, the vast majority of IoT devices have very basic needs of sending or receiving a miniscule amount of data. The physical requirements may likewise be very simple: an integrated chip containing only the minimal interfaces and a means of transmission or reception. There are three broad areas where these costs accumulate and compel the need for a new approach in the Internet of Things- hardware and software, oversight and management, and security.
Internet of things-challenges and opportunities The term Internet of things (IoT) is used to describe embedded devices with Internet connectivity, allowing them to interact with each other, services, and people on a global scale. This level of connectivity can increase reliability, sustainability, and efficiency by improved access to information. Though the term “Internet of Things “was proposed by Kevin Ashton [2, 3] in 1999 ‘The Internet of Things’ is a concept originally coined and introduced by MIT, Auto-ID Center and intimately linked to RFID and electronic product code (EPC) [4, 3]. The IoT literally means, “All about physical items talking to each other”. Machine-to-machine communications and person-to-computer communications will be extended to things. According to the report [11], the top five concerns that companies have around IoT are: lack of employee skills/knowledge; a lack of senior management knowledge and commitment; products or services that don’t have an obvious IoT element to them; immaturity of industry standards around IoT; and high costs of required investment in IoT infrastructure [11].
The wireless devices offer many advantages in terms of cost, flexibility, power options, ease of installation and replacement. The challenges of IoT can be summarized as: • Availability of internet at everywhere and at no cost • Security issues • Low-cost smart sensing system development • Energy • Computational ability • Scalability • Fault Tolerance • Power Consumption • Acceptability among the society
The success of IoT is entirely dependent on the availability of internet at everywhere. -The following parameters should be considered for the selection of batteries: • Type of battery (Alkaline, Lithium-Ion, NiCad, NiMH, and Lead-Acid) • Life-time (Ahr requirement) • Environmental impact • Cost • Size • Memory effect • Safety issue.