The Internet of Things as a computing concept refers to a concept where people as well as other different objects can connect on the Internet with other devices and in the process gain acceptance of their presence. Internet of Things it must be noted is a very important concept as any object irrespective of whether it is living or inanimate, when supplied with the ability to digitally identify itself becomes a collective force whose sum total is much more than the objects itself. This is because the object earlier had a singular identity, but now is connected to surrounding objects and databases.

The revolutionary concept propagated by IoT is amply reflected in the research studies and reports of major firms and research agencies around the globe. Networking and telecommunication giant Cisco predicts that close to 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Gartner’s studies show that IoT products and services are expected to generate revenues to the tune of $ 300 billion by 2020.

Operating in a highly complex and dynamic business environment, businesses are always in a hurry to take the most efficient route to the market with their products and services. Increasing efficiency and enhancing productivity through use of new and innovative technologies and processes is foremost on the minds of enterprises. An interconnected network of people, machines and devices is capable of generating tremendous amount of data that can be parsed to extract meaningful information, a feature not available with conventional methods of data aggregation.

       

Reasons for rapid growth of IoT

IoT solutions continue to grow at a rapid pace owing to the exponential proliferation of internet enabled hand held devices like tabs and smartphones in addition to extra awareness amongst the consumers about the power of internet. With every device that jumps to the online platform, the pressure on IT infrastructure increases in proportion. Market research agency ABI Research reveals that devices enabling wireless connectivity are all set to reach 40 billion by 2020, about 40 per cent more than what it is today. Huge number of sensors and related devices are expected to generate data in huge numbers whose sheer volume, structure and velocity is going to pose a serious challenge to every component of the IT infrastructure that we see it as today.

How the growth is expected to impact data hosting mechanisms

First it was the rapid expansion of internet devices like smart phones and tablets, and the trend now is moving towards purchasing of wearable devices for variety of functions they serve like monitoring heartbeat, blood pressure levels, etc. As their number continues to grow at a rapid pace, the amount of data that is expected to come into being is huge. This fact is corroborated by IDC's Digital Universe Study which states that by 2020 IoT will alone be responsible for generating about 10 per cent of the data produced across the globe every year. Also, a mechanism has to be put in place for careful analysis and processing of the mammoth amount of data that will be generated. The sheer magnitude of data produced will demand optimised and augmented data management techniques in data centres.

As small bits of data are captured at faster pace, it is important that the current storage infrastructure gets a facelift. It needs to keep pace with the speed at which data is generated to ensure that it is capable of storing as well as transmitting these data quickly and efficiently to millions of devices that need them for processing information. Experts believe that a distributed architecture will be more suited to quickly capture and dissipate the flux of incoming data.  Studies also suggest that the fast growth of IoT will compel many organizations to collect data in multiple data centres for initial processing before they are sent to a centralised site. For example, different batches of data can be processed in different data centres before they are moved to a larger data warehouse or cloud.

Rapid growth of IoT and its impact on Networks

As mentioned above, it is a known fact that IoT deployments will generate tremendous amount of data from an extensive variety of sources. It goes without saying that it will hugely impact on the processes that are applied today in building networks. Your entire network infrastructure will need to undergo a major overhaul in order to quickly and efficiently react to events and transfer data in the quickest possible time.

This phenomenon is hugely going to impact the way data centres are built and function. IDC, for instance, predicts that 90% of the data centres and enterprise management system environments are expected to adopt a new approach to efficiently handle IoT and BYOD devices in the next couple of years. This all calls for developing a new structure, which can efficiently respond to the demand placed in by humongous amount of data that is expected to come into existence. The storage capacity needs to be expanded at a rapid pace to eliminate issues of bandwidth constraints and insufficient remote storage capabilities.

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