Service models
“But the megatrends we see start with service models as opposed to products, complemented by organisations recognising the value of leveraging expertise from outside rather than trying to do things themselves. It’s the same general progression as using cloud services rather than building data centres. It also demonstrates digital transformation, a loose enough term but certainly meaning that every little part of any business needs to be digitally connected. In a sense that’s easier for people — their eyes and fingers manage the connections — but not quite as easy for other assets, the physical assets, to be all connected back to the business.”
“Some examples are utterly simple. We have clients in the USA with big pipelines. Sensors at intervals can monitor for problems and save money as against people and trucks or even helicopters in some instances. That was mostly retrofitting, naturally. But today we are seeing more and more things being IoT enabled at the manufacturing stage.”
“But we are also seeing IoT develop into a sector that often has complex systems and networks and so has its own build-up of experience and expertise to design, build, deploy, secure and maintain. So now, in a similar way to how today’s businesses leverage cloud, they can take advantage of cellular providers and specialist IoT companies on a service basis. There is a growing body of expertise and a constantly developing set of tools for configuration and control, analysis, connectivity and so on — exactly like the Internet itself and the multiple ways in which we now utilise it. Much of the IoT stuff is open source as well.”
Maher also makes the point that ‘the Internet’ is often not the most appropriate network for a particular organisation’s IoT. “That public Internet is the only way for consumers, but businesses should aim to connect on networks that are not directly connected to the Internet and all its risks. Using mobile networks and connectivity solutions like ours, they can protect their assets on secure and appropriately architected networks. We have seen many exploits where ‘constrained devices’ have been the entry point for cyberattacks. They can’t be field upgraded yet they are now vulnerable to threats that were not envisaged when they were installed. Shielding such devices and networks from the Internet and its security threats is already an important strategy in IoT.”
Leap forward
The Nimbus Centre at CIT is Ireland’s largest research centre devoted to embedded electronic systems and the IoT. It has completed several hundred joint projects with Irish industry and even start-ups are highly varied and often very practical, like water systems control or the monitoring of individual cattle and other relatively valuable farm animals.
“In one sense individual monitoring and data collection devices of various kinds have been with us for decades,” said Dr John Barrett. “It is the global connectivity that is now the great leap forward, with all of the Internet and digital networking and tools that we can now utilise, particularly mobile networks. That gives the opportunity for real time information and real time actions where indicated. That can also, of course, mean the delivery of real time services, like a Google search or online shopping.
“The extension of that, what we now call the IoT, means that such real time services can be delivered to just about anything else on the planet that is technically enabled. There are two sides in turn to that — there can be real time alerts, if that’s what is required, and there is a stream of collected data which can provide a rich source for fine grained analysis subsequently. The concept is that we can use that data either to fine-tune and improve the services or to contribute to future developments.”
In Nimbus itself, Dr Barrett says, the centre has cut its energy costs by 20% by monitoring energy usage, occupancy and electricity prices, including forecasting, “We have also tried this in a commercial application in a sector of the water industry and cut electricity bills by 30%. Some of that includes smart switching off, as common sense would dictate. But much of it has been in sophisticated forecasting of demand and market prices for electricity and choosing the optimum solutions.
“On the business side, you move from being just a passive consumer to a negotiating position with your energy provider. You could even have longer term contracts with built-in rules for rates and discounts, applied in real time because the data is there to support that. This is a growing sector or type of business. Oracle, for example, has recently bought an energy analytics and management software company Opower for over half a billion dollars.”
A very interesting comment from Dr Barrett is that he and Nimbus envisage multiple downstream businesses coming into the market offering services based on the data generated from the IoT.
“Analytics as a professional service will certainly grow. But there could also be services based on IoT data, like insurance broking or localised insurance, energy broking or whatever, by companies that do not own or control a single sensor!”
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