From SCDigest's OnTarget e-Magazine
- Oct. 20, 2015 -
RFID, IoT and AIDC News: The Internet of Things - It Won't be Easy
Five Key Challenges IoT System Designers will have to Navigate
SCDigest Editorial Staff
We are certainly in the hype mode of the Internet of Things (IoT), with the emphasis mostly on actual and potential successes, such as Caterpillar's connectivity with millions of its machines across the globe, or the Amazon Dash button for automated home order entry.
But the reality is that there will be many technical, legal, regulatory and process challenges to have tens of billions or perhaps even trillion of things connected to the Internet.
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Decisions about what data needs to be stored locally or stored in the Cloud, and with what frequency, will be a key aspect of IoT system architecture.
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What Do You Say?
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In a recent witty column on EngineringLive web site, Tony Paine, CEO of Kepware Technologies, notes that the many promised benefits of IoT are "contingent upon the resolution of key challenges; most notably the interchange of data between the mechanical, digital and human components of an industrial automation process."
Paine identifies as what he sees as five key challenges to mass IoT deployment:
Challenge 1: Identifying Things within the Internet
In order for things to be able to communicate with each other, they need to be uniquely identifiable within the Internet, Paine says. Until now, this has been accomplished through a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. So the first question becomes, do we have enough IP addresses to go around?
Paine says there is a strong move to adopt something called the Ipv6 standard, which defines a 128-bit address capable of uniquely identifying 340 undecillionth (we're not sure, but it sounds like a very big number) of addressable items (compared with only 4 billion addressable items using today's Ipv4 standard).
While that will address the pure number of things to connect, Paine says there will be process problems too.
"It will be difficult, if not impossible, to manage this [IP assignment] effectively on a global Internet scale," Paine writes. "Typically, such tasks have historically been achieved by Naming and Number Authorities, with the aid of Network Administrators, but this will likely be an impediment, as things become added at an unprecedented rate.
Challenge 2: Discovering Things and the Data they Possess
Once a thing can be identified, Paine says the next challenge is how other interested parties will discover that it exists and what data it possesses. Of course, a thing should be able to restrict discovery of some or all of its data, based on security requirements. Just consider: what will be the process for adding a new "thing" on a factory floor or consumer's home?
"Balancing ease of discovery with the rigid constraints of security will be fundamental to the success of IoT and must be achievable without a PhD in cyber security," Paine adds.
Challenge 3: Managing massive amounts of data
These trillions of things we eventually connect will produce something much larger than trillions of data points, all of which will need to be collected, analyzed and possibly archived.
"Moving this amount of data over the Internet will consume new levels of bandwidth, which could result in the degradation of service as well as higher costs for internet carriers, service providers, and ultimately end users," Paine notes.
In addition, archiving this data for future analysis will require massive amounts of data storage and a new generation of scalable analytical applications capable of honing in on individual points of interest in a timely manner.
(RFID and AIDC Story Continued Below)
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Indeed, decisions about what data needs to be stored locally or stored in the Cloud, and with what frequency, will be a key aspect of IoT system architecture. 