Let's be clear: the sensors and devices designed and used in IoT applications are fascinating. Whether geared towards consumers, smart cities, businesses, or industry, cloud-based IoT applications are incredibly powerful and make a real difference in people's lives. This becomes clear when supporting applications leverage big data for analytics and apply machine learning and automation to create services and products that outperform traditional software.
There is a difference between the Internet of Things (IoT) and other applications that link remote terminals to backup servers. Perhaps there is no difference at all.
• Runners can measure their heart rates and other vital signs with apps that learn, over time, what their bodies are capable of.
• Healthcare professionals can share detailed images and videos of surgeries in real time to leverage remote insights in medical decision-making.
• Car owners take advantage of smart parking apps that make traveling through city streets easier and faster while simultaneously reducing fuel consumption, traffic, and pollution.
• Real-time information about roads, buses, and train stations alerts consumers and transit authorities to unforeseen delays.
• Smart climate control systems in public buildings detect when buildings are empty and adjust automatically.
Irrigation systems for home gardens, golf courses, and city parks monitor soil moisture and activate sprinklers only when needed, instead of being uselessly triggered by a timer that waters during a storm.
And this is just the beginning. My own home is rapidly becoming a smart, efficient home. My company's offices are becoming smart, efficient offices. My city is doing the same. Now, let's talk about the hidden challenge of the IoT: connecting all fixed and mobile devices, including sensors, with backup services, whether in the cloud or in a service provider's data center.
If the links are unreliable and can't handle the massive bandwidth demands, those billion devices won't be able to connect to the backup applications. Telemetry won't be able to be collected from remote sensors. This means that actions on remote devices, such as remotely operated surgical devices or automatic sprinkler systems, won't be displayed. Big data-based applications will not have the necessary data to make decisions and take actions in real time.
The Importance of Communication Service Providers: The Internet of Things relies on a wide range of network technologies and network service providers. Ethernet-based local area networks (LANs) can be used within buildings, and wide area networks (WANs) between buildings. Wi-Fi can be deployed within corporate buildings or public spaces, such as parks, and this connection may be managed by the city or a communications service provider (CS).
Many devices, such as those in connected vehicles, contain integrated mobile data transceivers connected to one of the most common providers. Naturally, consumers using smartphone apps or IoT wearables will have their own mobile connection or Wi-Fi at home, at work, in a hotel, at an exhibition center, or in a coffee shop.
When analyzing IoT, organizations must consider the reliability and scalability of all networks. Capacity planning is critical to ensuring that
network infrastructure is robust and can handle increasing data traffic. And this isn't enough. Most organizations rely on major providers with Tier 1 or Tier 2 CSPs that offer WAN services to link their sites and connect their networks with cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS).
Enterprises, industries, governments, and other organizations looking to scale IoT must work with CSPs to ensure their systems are robust enough. Providers should be analyzed, especially regarding service level assurance in terms of downtime, bandwidth, elasticity, latency, sluggishness, and delay. Many new IoT applications are more sensitive to network performance and have much more variable service requirements than traditional applications (particularly when there is heavy traffic to and from IoT devices at the network edge).
Smart Service Provider Networks: To stay ahead of the curve with IoT services and to highlight their service offerings, CSPs are constantly changing how they manage and develop their own networks. Ultimately
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while some IoT projects will start at the CIO/CTO/CEO level of an organization and remain under close control, many others will begin as modest initiatives driven by various business departments. In fact, some business directors may pilot IoT projects without fully understanding or mastering all the benefits and limitations of data networks.
To meet the growing demand for IoT services, CSPs are beginning to equip themselves with smarter, more robust, and data-driven networks. Because IoT projects span multiple networks, it is imperative to orchestrate services within and between networks to ensure the basic connectivity and bandwidth required to deliver a wide variety of IoT services. Remember: there are billions of connections between IoT devices and enterprise data centers, SaaS data centers, and the cloud. In some cases, those networks will be physical. However, these networks will increasingly incorporate software-defined networking (SDN) infrastructure and network functions virtualization (NFV) due to the programmability and adaptability these technologies offer.
The smartest tool in the smart CSP network will orchestrate service management and assurance, driven by real-time big data network analytics. Advanced intelligent analytics will help providers optimize their hybrid physical and virtual networks to
be more elastic. In other words, these networks will be able to accommodate unexpected data traffic and ensure high-level service for billions of everyday objects, regardless of the type of IoT application running.
With orchestrated service assurance, CSPs will also be able to identify and isolate network faults and route traffic along alternate paths until they are repaired. After all, failures will occur in large networks, whether caused by fiber cuts, hardware failures, power outages, misconfigurations, or excessive traffic impacting real-time performance.
Ultimately, orchestrated service assurance can help network providers meet their customers' service level demands. This method simplifies end-to-end management across all networks used by the IoT, such as 3G/4G/5G mobile, Wi-Fi, LAN, and Carrier Ethernet WAN. When an IoT application needs bandwidth, coverage, or specific levels of network performance, it will be there.
Thanks to technologies like real-time big data network analytics and orchestrated service management and assurance, communication service providers have become the true heroes and enablers of the IoT. Every day, these technologies make a difference in people's lives, even if no one realizes it.
