5 Key Ingredients for a Robust, End-to-End IoT Platform

5 Key Ingredients for a Robust, End-to-End IoT Platform

Introduction As the Internet of Things (IoT) matures and more projects are initiated by enterprise users, corporations and organizations in many different industries, a clear need for a comprehensive platform approach to IoT is emerging. In short, IoT Platform Services are being widely viewed as being too unwieldy and inefficient, with many of the common elements for crucial IoT services missing, making it difficult for companies to quickly deploy and develop their IoT strategy. The concept of an IoT platform should be one of elegant simplicity. An IoT platform should bring together all of the software and infrastructure components required to create an end-to-end IoT solution, taking the complexity out of delivering key services and support. That all-encompassing, end-to-end set of capabilities is core to the IoT platform concept but confusion exists in the market because vendors that do not offer a complete, end-to-end platform still refer to themselves as platform vendors. Key Takeways In This Report The concept of an IoT platform should be one of elegant simplicity There is substantial hype and confusion as to what constitutes a real IoT platform Cost, time to deployment and time to market are mission critical challenges to consider Full service IoT platforms allow organizations to deploy quickly with reduced up-front costs Learn About These 5 Mission Critical Platform Services! Device management Gateway services Application enablement Connectivity management Underlying service and support functions

Connecting IoT Applications that improve safety USE CASE: IoT platform enables safety solutions for U.S. school districts Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district. RTC Manufacturing, a provider of school zone safety equipment, utilized the power of an IoT platform and network capabilities to provide remote connectivity to school-zone warning flashers for enhanced student safety. The IoT solution enables remote, two-way communications between the school district's central traffic office and an embedded electronic device in the flasher signal signs. In the event of an early dismissal, the flasher schedule can be changed very efficiently across the entire school district with one simple update. This improvement saves a significant amount of time and frees administration personnel to assist students as they enter and exit the school safely. Key Platform Services 1 Device management 2 Gateway Services is an essential platform capability because it provides built-in over the air (OTA) ability to update hardware in the field, enabling software and hardware to be reconfigured over the air. Additionally, changing device reporting intervals, provisioning of devices, and monitoring signal and battery life are crucial capabilities. If you can t monitor and manage devices that are already deployed in the field, you lose flexibility and limit your return on investment. specifically focusing on data management, are another important aspect of a robust, end to end platform. IoT devices generate vast volumes of data which can be utilized and analyzed to create valuable insights. Businesses need a content management service that removes data choke points and ensures that even large sets of data captured at the edge of the network from many devices are aggregated and translated to a common format, through a single and seamless connection using a standard interface.

Connectivity, security and deployment of medical devices. USE CASE: IoT Plays Important Role for Patients Awaiting Heart Transplant Worldwide Reliant Heart provides lifesaving connectivity for patients worldwide awaiting a heart transplant and need to have the ability to remotely monitor and send real-time data via a secure network anywhere in the world 24/7. In addition, ReliantHeart needed to signal urgent alerts when needed to power its Heart Pump. Reliant Heart looked at three very specific criteria that were important to it when searching for an IoT platform partner on this project: A partner big enough not to fail Real-time connection all the time, anywhere in the world A turnkey solution IoT partner with platform and infrastructure capabilities under one roof For ReliantHeart, Numerex s worldwide connectivity and 24/7 remote monitoring capabilities play an integral role in the company s daily operations. Critical data about the functioning of a patient s heart pump, such as blood flow, speed and power, are monitored and broadcast via a secure wireless internet connection to a control centre remotely monitored via computers, ipads or smartphones. 3 Application enablement 4 Connectivity management is at the heart of IoT because without applications, the data collected by IoT sensors cannot be turned into something of value and displayed in such a way as to make sense of the information. An IoT platform should therefore enable smooth integration directly between the application, the enterprise and the analytics using API s and other forward leaning technology and software. dynamic and reliable network capability is integral to IoT because without it there is no connectivity for the internet of things. Organizations can, of course, self-manage their relationships with network operators, but this is often counterproductive because a company will typically have to establish relationships with multiple carriers across different markets to ensure coverage to support a service that is widely available. Being able to manage multiple carriers, across thousands or even tens of thousands of connections, all in one common portal is a clear differentiator for a robust IoT platform.

Managed solution delivered as an IoT service USE CASE: Tank Monitoring Solution Delivers Big Savings for Bulk Fuels Distributor 5 Underlying service and support functions are the additional key elements of an IoT platform and encompass systems to address administration and data protection such as billing and security. This portfolio of functions provides the capability to bill on behalf of, manage your subscriptions, and keep track of monthly network usage for all of your connections, especially if operations have been set up utilizing a multi-tenant structure. Being ISO 27001 Certified with Tier 1 24x7 support are also highly desirable key features for anyone considering an IoT platform today. Fuel delivery has always had some built-in inefficiency. Like most fuel and lubricant distributors, Retif Oil & Fuel followed a keep full model when restocking fuel tanks and was spending too much money topping off customer fuel tanks and making emergency deliveries. Without an accurate view of customer fuel stocks it was impossible to determine who needed fuel or how much they actually needed. After deploying the itank solution, which runs on a secure, scalable, and robust IoT Platform, Retif personnel and customers can now view tank levels and alerts in the itank Management Portal. The deployment expanded across more tanks in Retif s seven state coverage region. To date, Retif has deployed thousands of tank monitors, many of which were installed by Retif personnel. Since deploying itank, Retif has reduced the number of unnecessary deliveries by 48%, resulting in a net total in return-on-investment of over $10,000 per month in delivery expenses alone.

Introducing a New Approach to IoT Platforms end-to-end capability with nxfast Numerex was early to recognize the changing nature of organizations demands for end-to-end IoT capabilities and has transformed itself from an M2M solution vendor to an IoT managed service provider. The focus of the company has evolved from discrete and independent products toward more hosted enablement services designed to free customers from many of the traditional complex challenges faced in deploying IoT solutions. At the heart of the company s transformation is Numerex s horizontally integrated platform called nxfast. The nxfast Platform combines over two decades of Numerex IoT expertise and development with a modular, end-to-end, open architecture, which supports: Fully integrated IoT managed solutions Application enablement and device management services Enterprise Connection Management Billing on behalf of Services 24x7 end-to-end tier 1, 2 and 3 support. nxfast is a cloud-based, highly scalable, geographically redundant system. It supports pre-packaged, hosted IoT vertical solutions ready for rapid deployment by Numerex or its channel partners for security, asset tracking, asset optimization, remote monitoring, public safety and other vertical markets. Hosted managed solutions provide everything needed to ramp-up quickly including device support, issue resolution and warranty, fulfilment, billing data feeds and 24x7 tiered support. These offerings are essentially IoT-Solutions-as-a-Service (IoT SaaS). nxfast Gateway Services combine robust APIs with device administration and abstraction to enable rapid IoT solution development capabilities with pre-integrated and productized devices. nxfast Gateway Services provide a productized, lightweight framework to quickly combine new applications, networks and devices for rapid integration and deployment. Additional important flexible abilities including Bring Your Own Application (BYOA) and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), all hosted on the robust, Numerex multi-carrier network service. If a company has already partnered with one or more wireless service providers introducing multiple operational processes for managing their IoT connections, nxfast provides a solution for managing multi-carrier connectivity. Enterprise Connection Management provides a single, common management system to simplify these processes while using the customer s existing provider relationships. nxfast also includes several other enablement features such as bill-on-behalf, over 11 integrated wireless service offerings, and full end-to-end support at any level.

Conclusion Although substantial hype and confusion continues to exist as to what constitutes a real IoT platform, it is becoming clear that providing a single set of IoT-related capabilities does not make a supplier an IoT platform provider. Significant cross-discipline, horizontal skills are required to create a true platform for IoT that encompasses device, network and application enablement and connectivity along with supporting systems and services. Cost is only one aspect of the value that IoT platforms can provide. Perhaps more critical is time to deployment and time to market. IoT platforms, because they have been created by experienced vendors, bring pre-integrated components together in a simple to understand package, backed by the appropriate systems and network capacity. This can enable a service to be initiated within days, rather than spending months assembling an army of solution vendors and then losing further time most likely many months integrating the different technologies and systems. Full service IoT platforms allow organizations to get services up and running with a highgrade technical foundation that sets up the organization for massive growth if successful but, at the same, does not require the significant upfront investment usually required when dealing with an inexperienced or incomplete IoT Platform or company.

Market data Data from ABI Research s IoT Market Tracker, has uncovered that professional services are driving more than 40% of global IoT revenues today. However, by 2019, software platforms and analytics services will each drive more revenues globally than professional services in IoT markets. Berg Insight estimates that total revenues for third party IoT platforms will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.2% from 450 million in 2014 to 2.4 billion in 2020. Gartner predicts that, by 2020, more than 50% of all new applications developed on PaaS will be IoT-centric, disrupting conventional architecture practices. Research by Mind Commerce has projected that global IoT platform enabled revenue will reach $9.1tn by 2021. The firm says IoT Platform security solution revenue will represent an $820bn opportunity by 2021 and general purpose IoT platforms will overtake purpose-built platforms by 2020. A forecast from IoT Analytics sees the IoT Platforms market growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33% over the 2015-2021 forecast period, with annual revenue reaching $1.6 billion in 2021. numerex.com