BECE351L

IOT Fundamentals

IOT_ETH_M6_01
Dr. Om Prakash Sahu
Centre for Innovation and Product Development
Assistant Professor (SG-2)
SENSE
7/19/2023 VIT
VIT University
CC, IOT BECE351L 1
 Module: 6
IoT Platforms for Usecase Development

1.Open source IoT platforms and services

2.Communication API’s- REST
3.Websocket
4.Scalability of IoT Solutions
 Scalability of IoT Solutions

7/19/2023 VIT CC, IOT BECE351L 3

 Scalability of IoT Solutions
Scalability is one of the most crucial criteria you should look for when
considering an enterprise IoT solution.

It’s impossible to scale IoT without also considering factors like

security, cellular coverage, certifications, and your supply of devices.
• What scalability means
• Why scalability should be a crucial part of planning
an IoT deployment
• Common IoT scalability challenges
• What issues you can expect at a large-scale IoT
ecosystem
• How Particle makes scalability much more
manageable than trying to scale yourself
 What Does Scalability in IoT Mean?
• IoT scalability refers to the ability to go from prototype to production in
a seamless way.
• Similarly, in IoT deployments, companies need the ability to scale up and
down depending on the amount of data their fleet of devices is providing.
To be successful, you must be confident that the infrastructure, cloud, and
connectivity layers can all scale with you.
• That software-layer scalability is critical, but because IoT encompasses
hardware, the ability to quickly iterate on your hardware design, deploy
that hardware around the world on different cellular networks, and stay
within the bounds of the certification requirements is equally important.
• This process often presents challenges because it can involve multiple
parts: different vendors, pieces of hardware, and cellular carriers.
Scaling into new geographic areas usually involves finding new carriers
and seeking regional certifications, draining time and resources in the
process.
 Common IoT Scalability Challenges
• Reliability and scalability go hand in hand here. Before you launch, make
sure you can reach the number of devices and connectivity to properly
deliver on the promises you make to your customers.

• Security
• Device Management
• Cellular Coverage
• Elasticity
• Scaling Globally
• Assured Security
• Streamlined Cellular Connectivity
https://www.particle.io/iot-guides-and-resources/iot-
scalability/#:~:text=What%20Does%20Scalability%20in%20IoT,process%20orders%20on%20Black%20Friday.
 Common IoT Scalability Challenges
IoT stakeholders must also deal with certain challenges. Aspects like network
security, identity management, data volume, and privacy are sure to pose
challenges. These challenges are discussed in detail below:

Network Security: The expansion in the volume of IoT devices is accompanied

by an urgent need to secure the network against malicious attacks. We must
define new protocols and incorporate encryption algorithms to enable high
throughput.

Privacy: Ensuring the anonymity and individuality of IoT users must be critical
for any IoT provider. And this will only get more challenging as more IoT
devices enter an ever-expanding network.
 Common IoT Scalability Challenges
Trust and Governance: Without a proper governance system for trust
management between the user and provider, a breach of confidence between
entities is imminent.

Access Control: With the low bandwidth between the IoT device and the
internet, low power usage, and distributed architecture, access control will be a
challenge. So, conventional access control systems for admins and end-users
must be refurbished as and when new IoT scalability challenges arrive.

Big Data Generation: IoT systems make programmed judgments based on

categorized data compiled from multitudinous sensors. As data volume increases
disproportionately with an increasing number of devices, scaling will present the
challenge of large silos of Big Data. Determining the relevance of this data will
require unprecedented computing power.
 Common IoT Scalability Challenges
Fault Tolerance: Adapt with the ever- changing environments and build up
trustworthy redundancy as the IoT will be more prone to attacks and malicious
systems might try to pursue control over other devices either directly or in an
indirect manner. Thus, due to this, fault tolerance can be a probable issue in
scalability.

Identity Management: Identity management is a field of study which deals with

security. It is concerned with giving access to authorized personnel only and it
also controls their access to various resources. Major cause are access
unauthorized data and cause trouble in identity management.
 Techniques For Scalability
• Using automated bootstrapping

• Controlling the IoT data pipeline

• Applying the three-axis approach for scaling

• Developing microservices architecture

• Adopting multiple data storage technologies

• Create a system that can be easily expanded

 Techniques For Scalability
1. Using automated bootstrapping

• As the number of devices increase, manual functions such as

bootstrapping, software and security configuration, device registration
and upgrade are no longer feasible.

• All these services must automate the aforementioned processes in order

to save time and act more efficiently.

• Devices must have in-built facilities with required bootloaders, security

keys and other necessary features that will promote the process of
automation when a remotely located device starts up for the first time.
 Techniques For Scalability
2. Controlling the IoT data pipeline

• IoT devices generate and transmit tremendous amount of data that

needs to be processed and organized in a required format for it to be
usable.
• An dispensable need for a data processing pipeline that is made up
of front-end collected and a specific set of data and content curation
functions in IoT applications.
• With increased number of devices that contribute to generating and
transmitting data, these data pipelines must be designed in such a
way that they can handle sudden surge in the rate of flow of data
and performance issues.
• The capacities of these data streams must be adjusted based on
valuable parameters such as the number of simultaneously
connected devices or data streams.
 Techniques For Scalability
3. Applying the three-axis approach for scaling
• IoT applications can be scaled along the three fundamental axes:
• X axis – scale by cloning,
• Y axis – scaling by splitting different things and
• Z axis – scale by splitting similar things.

• X-scaling is associated with utilizing more resources to distribute the incoming

demands amongst various servers, in such a way that all servers are capable of
handling requests. It is beneficial to incorporate servers that preserve state information
from one request to another. It is easy to scale up such servers.
• Scaling in Y-axis perpetually means distributing the tasks at hand based on processes.
• Scaling in the Z-axis means allocating the responsibilities on the basis of the incoming
request or response data.
Thus, scaling in various directions plays an eminent role as a technique for scalability.
 Techniques For Scalability
4. Developing microservices architecture

• Microservices is a contemporary architectural approach in which

intricate applications are comprised of individualistic micro-processes
disseminating with each other with the help of language-agnostic APIs.

• It is useful to divide each application into several independent

instances which are often called functional units each of which
performs a separate function.

• Each of these functional units should work independently and executed.

• These Functional units can send messages to each other and hence is
called microservice architecture.
 Techniques For Scalability
5. Adopting multiple data storage technologies

• An IOT system has different parts of applications which require

different techniques for their storage rather than using one common
technique for all.

• Moreover, the data query and the retrieval requirements should

determine their choice of data storage technology or in other words their
choice of database.
 Techniques For Scalability
6. Create a system that can be easily expanded
• As more and more devices are added to the system it should have the
capability to easily expand.
• The device should be designed by analysing the future needs and
designing the device according to it.

7. Ensuring devices are connected to the network

• Making sure that the devices that are on the network can be operated
for many years without needing any service.
• The maintenance results in the lowest operational cost for the device
as well as the network in long term view.
 Model Questions (Module 6)
1. How to select the IoT platforms based on particular applications? What
are the important capabilities related to te selected IoT Platform? Briefly
explain above two aspects for any one real time applications such as
health care / agriculture etc?

2. Case study based on REST API.

3. Case Study based on WebSocket API.

4. What are the challenges in scalability in IoT for real time applications eg
Agriculture? Explain the techniques to overcome the challenges faced.
 Addon Notes on IoT Scalability
Case Study:
Fault Tolerant and Scalable IoT-based Architecture for Health Monitoring.

General Topic:
Scalability in Internet of Things: Features Techniques and Research
Challenges
Dr. Om Prakash Sahu
Assistant Professor (SG-2)
SENSE, VIT University
09827889143
Email Id : omprakash.sahu@vit.ac.in