This Position Paper, sponsored by Eseye, examines the transition occurring in the way Internet of Things solutions are developed. The IoT is moving from a one-size-fits-all approach built on technologies that were not developed with the constraints of IoT in mind, to a 'Connected-by-Design' approach, reflecting the unique requirements of each IoT use case, complexity of the mix of components, and where careful consideration is given to how all the elements are optimised, particularly connectivity.
The Internet of Things is diverse and complex. Every use case considered under the umbrella of 'IoT' has unique deployment characteristics, whether it relates to access to power, requirements for bandwidth or latency, volume of data, frequency of communication, resiliency, up-time requirements, limitations of form-factor or cost, and numerous others. At the same time it is a highly complex development environment, with a 'full stack' that includes sensors, embedded operating systems, networking, application data management, business process integration, end-to-end security, and compute, all managed across device, edge and cloud.
Given the constraints under which IoT use cases typically operate, it is critical that the elements of the full stack are optimised for the needs of the application, particularly making use of a range of technologies that have emerged quite recently specifically aimed at constrained IoT deployments. It is not enough, however, simply to use components that are individually optimised for IoT, developers must ensure that they are cross-optimised with each other.
Due to the distributed nature of IoT, connectivity is the lynch pin, and the most critical element to cross-optimise with others. All other dependencies will be subsidiary to those related to connectivity. For this reason developers need to adopt a 'Connected-by-Design' approach which simulates how to best architect a distributed application, implementing the appropriate features and functionality.
This report starts with a consideration of the diversity of IoT use cases, moves on to examine the 'full stack' with which IoT developers need to grapple, including a particular focus on connectivity as the critical element, considers the different connectivity requirements of each unique use case, and proposes an approach to best ensure that the complexity and diversity of IoT is optimally addressed. We call this 'Connected-by-Design'.
This Position Paper, sponsored by Eseye, is free to download. By downloading the Position Paper you agree to allow Transforma Insights to share your email address with the sponsor of the report.
