What is the internet of things, and how does it work?

What is the internet of things, and how does it work?

What is the internet of things, exactly? Simply described, it's M2M communication, but it's about more than simply smart devices. The world is changing because of real-time data from IoT devices.

What precisely is the internet of things? It's a vague concept, but it's quickly becoming a real technology that can be used in data centers to collect data on just about anything IT needs to control.

The internet of things is a system of machines or objects that are equipped with data-gathering technology that can connect with one another. Machine-to-machine (M2M) data can be used for a variety of purposes, but it's most typically used to determine the health and status of inanimate and live objects.

IT managers may utilize IoT to collect data about everything in their physical surroundings. They already do, in fact.

IoT is being used to halt deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in one scenario. Cargo Truck, a Brazilian location-services firm, installs M2M sensors from security firm Gemalto in trees in protected locations. When a tree is cut or relocated, law enforcement receives a message with the tree's GPS location, allowing them to trace down the tree that was illegally removed.

One analyst used the iPhone as an example to demonstrate IoT. According to Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst of M2M and IoT at IHS Markit Ltd. in Tempe, Ariz., disconnected third-party applications located in the cloud can be connected, and users can access all kinds of data from the device.

What is the internet of things and how does it work?

While some people think of IoT as M2M communication over a closed network, Lucero says that paradigm is really simply an intranet of things.

Apps deployed for a single purpose on an intranet of things don't interact with each other outside of that network. True IoT is when multiple apps are installed for specific purposes, and the data collected from the monitored equipment and objects is made available to third-party applications. True IoT is expected to give greater value than what can be gained from isolated islands of data, according to Lucero.

Platforms from competing suppliers must be able to communicate with one another for IoT to work in data centers. For both the systems interfaces and various smart devices, this necessitates standard APIs that all vendors and equipment can plug into, according to Mike Sapien, a principal analyst at Ovum.

In February 2013, IBM requested that its IoT protocol, MQ Telemetry Transport, or MQTT, be adopted as an open standard. This would make it easier for multiple vendors to join the Internet of Things.

"[System integrators] like [Hewlett Packard Enterprise], IBM, and others are starting to open up their systems to be less restricted," Sapien added, "much as telecom operators are allowing multiple networks — not just their own — to be part of the IoT ecosystem." "However, it has taken many years for this to happen."

Meanwhile, a variety of platforms act as the infrastructure that allows systems from many manufacturers to communicate and be managed. Xively Cloud Services, a public IoT platform as a service from LogMeIn Inc. (Editor's note: Xively was acquired by Google in 2018), is one such platform. Xively Cloud Services is now a part of the Google Cloud Platform family of products. It enables IT to create, prototype, and manufacture any internet-connected gadget.

Companies that need to track energy usage, for example, may utilize closed, vendor-specific systems. They can utilize a secondary system like Xively to monitor heating and cooling and control energy use across several locations.

According to Lucero, one long-term consequence of the internet of things for the business data center could be a massive volume of incoming data that necessitates costly infrastructure enhancements, especially for real-time data processing and storage.

IoT's History

Kevin Ashton is said to have originated the term "internet of things" during a presentation to Proctor & Gamble in 1999. Ashton labeled his presentation "Internet of Things" to emphasize the relevance of RFID to company executives. He sought to combine one of the greatest fads of the late 1990s — the internet — into his address. In his book, When Things Start to Think, published later that year, Neil Gershenfeld described the concept of IoT, albeit he didn't use the exact name.

However, IoT had already begun to take shape by the time Ashton introduced the phrase. In the early 1980s, a Coke machine allowed programmers at Carnegie Mellon University to check the status of their favorite soda before visiting the machine, making it one of the earliest IoT devices. John Romkey showed a toaster that could be turned on and off over the internet at Interop in 1990 — a modest but early example of an internet-connected gadget.

Technically, IoT emerged from M2M, with M2M providing the connectivity that allows different IoT devices to communicate with one another. IoT is also a branch of supervisory control and data collection software, which collects real-time data from various locations in order to regulate equipment and conditions.

Let's fast forward a few decades. The internet is now widely accessible; in 1995, less than 1% of the world's population had access to the internet. More than 54% of the population has internet connectivity, with upwards of 8.5 billion smart devices linked to the internet as of December 2017. According to some estimates, the number of IoT devices will reach 20.8 billion by 2020, with total spending on smart devices and services reaching $3.7 trillion this year.