IoT Business Transformation Launchpad

The objective of this blog is to provide an understanding of various aspects of an IoT Solution. It also covers some of the tool-sets used for developing an IoT solution. We will briefly describe core components of IoT such as OS, Hardware/sensors, communication/transport protocols, programming languages, middleware platform and data-visualization platform.

About Internet of Things

As we all know the "Internet of Things" is a network of connected devices with the ability to collect and exchange data using embedded sensors. An IoT device is a stand-alone internet-connected device that exchanges data with other devices and cloud-based applications.

6 Layers of an IoT Solution

• 1

  Physical layer

  Hardware such as BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Intel Edison, Samsung Artik. Sensors such as proximity, temperature, humidity, GPS, camera, vibration sensor.

• 2

  OS Layer

  IoT devices are powered by Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS). Some of the RTOS available are: Android Things, Raspbian, Windows 10 for IOT, Mbed.

• 3

  Application Layer

  Programming language such as Python, Java, C, C++ and others. Sensor Communication Protocols such as GPIO, I2C, UART, PWM and SPI

• 4

  Network Layer

  Infrastructure protocols such as IPV6, UDP, 6LoWPAN

• 5

  Transport Layer and Data Link Protocol

  Physical (PHY) and MAC layer protocols such as Bluetooth LE, Z-Wave, LTE, ZigBee, NFC, HomePlug GP and Wi-Fi protocols

• 6

  Data Layer

  Mostly used data protocols in IoT solutions are MQTT, MQTT-SN, CoAP, XMPP, REST

IoT Middle-ware Platforms

An IoT platform is also often referred to as IoT middleware, which underlines its functional role as that of a mediator between the hardware and application layers. The IoT platform ensures seamless integration with different hardware by using a range of popular communication protocols, applying different type of topologies (direct connect or gateway), and using SDKs when necessary.

The better IoT platforms are those who are capable of integration with almost any connected device and blend in with the applications used by the device. This allows the platform to implement IoT features into any kind of connected device in the same straightforward way. Some of the popular IoT platforms are KAA, WSO2, IBM Watson IoT, etc.

Advanced IoT Platforms

Some features which differentiate IoT platforms between each other are scalability, ease of use, code control, integration with 3rd party software, deployment options, and the data security level.

• 
  Scalability
• 
  Ease of
• 
  Third-party integration
• 
  Deployment options
• 
  Data security

Analytics and Data-Visualization

Its visualization is another key benefit of IoT solutions to get meaningful, objective and real-time insight into the details being captured through sensors/devices. Tools like Zeppelin.