IOT

IOT Journey:
The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly permeating various industries, with IT professionals
and computer science experts actively working to make it ubiquitous. Forecasts predict that
by 2020, everyday objects will be web-enabled, leading to numerous advantages for end
users, technical professionals, and new business models. Examples include Internet-enabled
refrigerators that can order supplies and provide updates on food quantities. The massive
number of Internet-enabled things is considered a game-changer for humanity, supported by
cloud infrastructures and developer contributions to create IoT platforms.

Smartphones play a crucial role in connecting people globally, with mobile-enabled

applications accumulating in remote mobile clouds. Mobile interfaces empower business-
critical software applications, facilitating ubiquitous access. Specific IoT devices tailored for
environments like homes, hotels, and hospitals are emerging, such as home integration
devices (HIDs) for smarter homes. The expectation is that, by 2020, there will be millions of
software applications encompassing device-specific and generic applications.

Human–machine interfaces (HMIs) enable remote interaction with machines using

smartphones and other input/output devices. In addition to smartphones, there is a rising
trend of implantable, wearable, and portable IoT devices connecting with remote
applications and machines. Standardization efforts worldwide aim to establish competent
standards for existing and emerging IoT devices, making them convenient I/O entities for
accessing information and applications. The convergence of technologies, techniques, and
tools is rapidly maturing, creating an optimal environment for realizing the IoT vision.
The IOT Building Blocks:
The proliferation of software infrastructure solutions for capturing, ingesting, and analyzing
IoT data has fueled significant activity in both consumer and enterprise spaces. Numerous
start-ups have emerged to address specific IoT use cases, leading to the visualization of a
multitude of new IoT applications. This section discusses the principal building blocks of
futuristic IoT applications:
1. Digitized Entities and Connected Devices:
- Everyday items need to be empowered with edge technologies and sensors to capture
various states.
- Sensors, such as pressure, weight, gas, fire detection, and GPS, enable objects to be self-
aware and surroundings-aware.
- Physical, mechanical, electrical, and electronic devices are enabled to be calculative,
connected, sensitive, perceptive, and responsive.
2. IoT or Sensor Data Gateway:
- Gateways aggregate and transmit data from digitized entities to analytics software
solutions.
- Gateways may process data locally (fog or edge computing) or transmit it to cloud-based
solutions.
- Gateway functions include filtering, aggregating, and cleansing incoming data to reduce
network load.

3. Application Enablement Platforms (AEPs):

- Cloud-based platforms allow developers to create IoT applications based on data from
ground-level entities.
- AEPs provide APIs, mostly RESTful, for real-time data passage to remote RAD tools.
- AEPs enable the direct deployment of applications and services in cloud-based execution
containers.

4. Data Analytics Platforms:

- These platforms implement powerful data mining, fusion, and processing algorithms to
derive knowledge from data.
- Insights from data analytics are fed into AEPs to drive innovative applications.
- Challenges include handling massive sensor and actuator data and ensuring elastic IT
infrastructures for big data analytics.

5. Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination:

- Analytics processes generate knowledge leveraged for confident decision-making.
- Correlation, corroboration, and collaboration mechanisms enable the emission of
beneficial insights.
- Visualization tools and integrated dashboards articulate insights for both humans and
machines.

6. Storage, Backup, and Archival:

- Effective data backup is essential for historical and comprehensive analytics and
compliance with regulations.
- IoT data is stored in easily discoverable and accessible storage appliances.
 - Predictive, prescriptive, and personalized analytics are expected to dominate the future.

The IoT ecosystem involves a seamless flow of data from digitized entities to analytics
platforms, leading to actionable insights and informed decision-making. The storage, backup,
and archival aspects are crucial for compliance, historical analysis, and ensuring the
availability of data for future use.
AZURE IOT HUB:
1. Azure IoT Hub Overview:
- The IoT Hub is a service within Microsoft Azure's cloud offering designed for bidirectional
communication between devices and the Azure cloud.
- It facilitates reliable and secure communication channels, ensuring data integrity and
confidentiality.
2. Bidirectional Communication:
- Enables bidirectional communication between devices and the Microsoft Azure business
engine in the cloud.
- Authentication is per device, utilizing credentials and access control for secure
connections.
3. Device-to-Cloud (D2C) Telemetry:
- Users can utilize D2C telemetry data to understand the state of their IoT devices and
assets.
- Enables proactive actions based on real-time device information.
4. Cloud-to-Device (C2D) Messages:
- Allows reliable sending of commands and notifications from the cloud to connected
devices.
- Acknowledgment receipts enable tracking of message delivery, ensuring commands reach
their intended devices.
5. Durable Message Delivery:
- Messages sent to devices are handled in a durable way to accommodate intermittently
connected devices.
- Ensures that messages are reliably delivered even if devices experience intermittent
connectivity.
6. Identity Registry:
- Azure IoT Hub maintains an identity registry that stores information about provisioned
devices.
 - Information in the registry is not related to devices' metadata but focuses on identity and
authentication.
7. Monitoring and Control:
- The identity registry provides monitoring information, including connection status
(connected or disconnected) and last activity time.
- Users can enable or disable devices through the registry, providing control over device
connectivity.
8. Device Identity Management:
- IoT Hub exposes an endpoint for device identity management.
- Users can create, retrieve, update, and delete devices through this endpoint, managing
the lifecycle of IoT devices.
In summary, Azure IoT Hub serves as a comprehensive platform for managing and facilitating
communication with IoT devices securely. It includes features for telemetry data exchange,
cloud-to-device messaging, durable message delivery, identity management, and monitoring
capabilities, enhancing the overall IoT experience on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

AWS IoT Overview:

1. Connectivity and Integration:
- AWS IoT serves as a platform to connect devices to AWS services and enables
communication between devices.
- Facilitates integration with other devices, allowing seamless data exchange within the
AWS ecosystem.
2. Security and Data Protection:
- Ensures secure data and interactions between devices and AWS services.
- Implements robust security measures to protect sensitive IoT data and maintain the
integrity of communications.
3. Data Processing and Action:
- Processes and acts on device data received within the AWS IoT platform.
- Allows applications to interact with devices based on the processed data, enabling
intelligent actions.
4. Device State as a Core Concept:
- Centralizes around the concept of "device state," where devices, referred to as "things,"
report their states by publishing messages to the message broker through topics.
- The message broker delivers these messages to all clients subscribed to specific topics,
ensuring widespread data dissemination.
5. Thing Shadow and Command Pattern:
- Utilizes the concept of "thing shadow" to represent the desired state for a thing or
device.
- Implements a command pattern to change the desired state, effectively requesting
actions from the devices.
6. Thing Registry:
- AWS IoT includes a thing registry that stores devices' information and metadata.
- Allows the addition of custom attributes to enhance the description of devices within the
registry.
7. Thing Registry Operations via AWS CLI:
- Interaction with the thing registry, such as creating, deleting, and updating things, is
facilitated through the AWS CLI (Command Line Interface).
- AWS CLI provides a command set for managing devices and their metadata within the
AWS IoT ecosystem.

8. Telemetry Data Publishing:

- AWS IoT facilitates the publishing of telemetry data to the cloud, allowing devices to
report their states to the AWS platform.
- This telemetry data provides insights into the status and behavior of connected devices.

9. Thing Shadow for Desired State:

- The command pattern in AWS IoT involves changing the desired state of a thing shadow,
ultimately requesting corresponding actions from the associated devices.
In summary, AWS IoT provides a robust and secure platform for connecting, managing, and
interacting with IoT devices. It emphasizes the central concept of device state, utilizes thing
shadows, implements a command pattern, and offers a thing registry for efficient device
management within the AWS ecosystem. The AWS CLI serves as a versatile tool for
performing operations on the thing registry.

The IoT Data Analytics Platforms:

IBM Watson IoT Platform:
1. **Data Overload Challenge:**
- The IoT domain is becoming the largest source of data globally, yet almost 90% of this
data is not acted upon.
- IBM Watson IoT platform addresses the challenge of harnessing and leveraging the
massive volume of IoT data.
2. Unique Abilities of Watson:
- IBM Watson IoT platform possesses unique abilities to sense, reason, and learn from IoT
data.
- Enables enterprises, governments, and individuals to analyze IoT data, compare it with
historical datasets, and discover unexpected correlations for new insights.
3. Integration with IBM Bluemix Platform:
- When combined with the IBM Bluemix platform, Watson IoT provides simple yet
powerful access to IoT devices and data.
 - Facilitates the rapid composition of analytics applications, visualization dashboards, and
mobile IoT applications.
4. Cognitive IoT Solutions and Services:
- IBM delivers Watson APIs and services on the Watson IoT cloud platform to accelerate
the development of cognitive IoT solutions.
- Aims to make sense of the growing volume and variety of data in a digitized physical
world.
5. Open and Cloud-Based IoT Platform:
- Clients, start-ups, academia, and IoT partners have direct access to IBM's open and cloud-
based IoT platform.
- Provides a testing ground for developing next-generation cognitive IoT applications,
services, and solutions.
6. API Services:
- IBM introduces four new API services as part of the Watson IoT platform:
- **Natural Language Processing (NLP) API Family:**
- Enables interaction with systems and devices using human language.
- Correlates human language with other data sources to understand intent and
situations.
- **Machine Learning Watson API Family:**
- Automates data processing and continuously monitors new data to rank results based
on learned priorities.
- Applies machine learning to understand current conditions, expected trends, and
suggested actions.
- **Video and Image Analytics API Family:**
- Monitors unstructured data from video feeds and image snapshots to identify scenes
and patterns.
- Enhances understanding of past events and emerging situations when combined with
machine data.
- **Text Analytics API Family:**
- Mines unstructured textual data to find correlations and patterns.
- Example use case includes correlating phrases from customer call centers and
technician logs to identify potential issues.
7. Cognitive Computing and IoT Insights:
- Cognitive computing represents a new class of systems that learn and interact with
humans naturally.
- IBM Watson IoT platform can make sense of 80% of unstructured data generated by the
IoT, providing actionable insights.

8. Real-Time Processing with IBM Watson:

- IBM Watson IoT platform emphasizes interactive and iterative processing on big data,
enabling the generation of real-time insights.
- Cognitive systems learn and reason from interactions and experiences, keeping pace with
the complexity and unpredictability of IoT-generated information.
9. Global IoT Landscape:
- Acknowledges the existence of over 9 billion connected devices globally, generating 2.5
quintillion bytes of new data daily.
- IBM Watson IoT platform leverages cognitive capabilities to process and derive actionable
insights from this vast amount of IoT data.