Are You Ready for What's Coming with IoT?
Organizations in the manufacturing and industrial sectors have long known the value of using sensors in early, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. These sensors ushered in an early form of edge computing and a new M2M subset now known as the Internet of Things (IoT).
Such devices (or end points) have already generated high volumes of data. Yet, they represent just a fraction of the connected devices set to descend on more industry sectors by 2025, according to IDC.
[Source: Adapted from IDC.]
Before we go further, let’s first agree on what we mean by edge computing and IoT.
According to a report by the Global Systems for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), edge computing refers to:
“…a range of edge technologies (hardware and software) that enable storage, computing, processing, and networking closer to the device generating or consuming the data than in a traditional, fully cloud-based model...”
ZDNet goes a step farther when it defines the Internet of Things (IoT) as:
“…the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data.”
Let that fact sink in: billions of devices. Or, as noted Astronomist Carl Sagan was once parodied as saying about the vast universe, “billions and billions.”
IoT devices can include anything from sensors and actuators to video cameras and smartphones. The growing proliferation of these devices presents both a challenge and opportunity for today’s business leaders. They need to make sense of the huge volumes of data such devices now digitalize, transmit, and share about themselves and their surrounding physical world.
How can your enterprise organization gain the most wisdom and insight from the growing number of digital interconnections? How can you best integrate this information into your already-large digital data stores?
