Peculiarities of Developing IoT Solutions for Business (in simple words)

The Internet of Things is now trending. More and more companies invest in the development of various IoT solutions, and this technology expands its possibilities to streamline business processes and cut costs. Lots of smart devices work and exchange data with each other via the Internet, needing minimal human intervention.

In practice, the IoT system is a combination of multiple smart devices (sensors, controllers, and other gadgets) and the cloud platform to which they are all connected. The system operates on several levels:

1. Hardware, meaning physical devices.
2. Cloud infrastructure, which is responsible for storage and processing the data received.
3. A management app to control IoT devices on the user side (for a smartphone, tablet, or PC).

[IoT Architecture model]

The cost of every element belonging to the infrastructure depends on the type of solution you are going to develop and on the level of its complexity. It is one thing to use an array of Bluetooth beacons to collect data on customers visiting a retail store, and quite another to develop a large-scale project aimed at automating an industrial facility, using a wide scope of devices and high-level security measures.

Software IoT platforms mainly differ from each other by the following criteria:

• scalability — implies the number of end devices connectable to the platform, including server load balancing;
• ease of use — integration flexibility and ease of source code management;
• deployment options — a public or private cloud;
• security — data protection through encryption, user access control (separation of rights), etc.;
• database — the choice of storing data transferred from devices, availability of hybrid cloud databases, etc.

As for cloud services used to deploy IoT solutions, Amazon Web Services (AWS) confidently holds the leading position. The second most popular service for such purposes is Microsoft Azure IoT.

[By Eclipse Foundation, Inc.]

Analytics is an important point in this matter. Typically, IoT platforms pursue their main goal — collecting analytics from hundreds or even tens of thousands of sensors or other devices and displaying this data to users. Most modern software IoT platforms support several types of analytics:

• live analytics — stream aggregation, filtering, etc.;
• batch analysis — operations with the data set accumulated;
• interactive data analytics — multiple research analysis of both streaming and packet data.

Some IoT solutions require additional expenses to set up the so-called “hidden” infrastructure. Most often, it is all about a support system.
For instance, you may be developing a system to monitor senior citizens’ health, using special sensors equipped with crisis alert mechanisms. In this case, you will have to arrange a special support group to promptly respond to these types of requests.

To summarize

Currently, this market is just in its infancy stage, and businesses should take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Internet of Things technology to solidify their competitive advantages.

Lvivity has all the necessary expertise to design and develop integrated IoT systems aimed at meeting the needs of companies from different industry areas. If you are looking for a partner to develop software for a custom IoT solution, write to us, and we will assist you in this endeavor.