Cloud Computing & IoT (Internet of Things): Projected Future
Rumana Tarin
Date: 26 April 2016
Cloud Computing & IoT (Internet of Things): Projected Future
What is Cloud Computing?
In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of our computer's hard drive. The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet. It goes back to the days of flowcharts and presentations that would represent the gigantic server farm infrastructure of the Internet as nothing but a puffy, white cumulonimbus cloud, accepting connections and doling out information as it floats.
The origin of the term cloud computing is unclear. The word "cloud" is commonly used in science to describe a large agglomeration of objects that visually appear from a distance as a cloud and describes any set of things whose details are not further inspected in a given context. References to "cloud computing" in its modern sense appeared as early as 1996, with the earliest known mention in a Compaq internal document. The popularization of the term can be traced to 2006 when Amazon.com introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud. And Since 2000, cloud computing has come into existence.
Cloud computing is not about our hard drive. When we store data on or run programs from the hard drive, that's called local storage and computing. Everything we need is physically close to us, which means accessing our data is fast and easy, for that one computer, or others on the local network. Working off our hard drive is how the computer industry functioned for decades; some would argue it's still superior to cloud computing, for reasons I'll explain shortly.
The cloud is also not about having dedicated network attached storage (NAS) hardware or server in residence. Storing data in a home or office network does not count as utilizing the cloud. (However, some NAS will let us remotely access things over the Internet, and there's at least one NAS named "My Cloud," just to keep things confusing.)
For it to be considered "cloud computing," we need to access our data or our programs over the Internet, or at the very least, have that data synchronized with other information over the Web. In a big business, we may know all there is to know about what's on the other side of the connection; as an individual user, we may never have any idea what kind of massive data-processing is happening on the other end. The end result is the same: with an online connection, cloud computing can be done anywhere, anytime.
The main enabling technology for cloud computing is virtualization. Virtualization software separates a physical computing device into one or more "virtual" devices, each of which can be easily used and managed to perform computing tasks.
Cloud computing is a kind of grid computing it has evolved by addressing the QoS (quality of service) and reliability problems. Cloud computing provides the tools and technologies to build data/compute intensive parallel applications with much more affordable prices compared to traditional parallel computing techniques. Cloud computing shares characteristics with Client-server model, Grid computing, Fog computing, Dew computing, Mainframe computer, Utility computing & Peer-to-peer.
The main types of cloud computing are the Private cloud, Public cloud, and Hybrid cloud. Some more are there as well.
Cloud computing: a better way
With cloud computing, we eliminate those headaches because we’re not managing hardware and software—that’s the responsibility of an experienced vendor like salesforce.com. The shared infrastructure means it works like a utility: we only pay for what we need, upgrades are automatic, and scaling up or down is easy.
Cloud-based apps can be up and running in days or weeks, and they cost less. With a cloud app, we just open a browser, log in, customize the app, and start using it.
Businesses are running all kinds of apps in the cloud, like customer relationship management (CRM), HR, accounting, and much more. Some of the world’s largest companies moved their applications to the cloud with salesforce.com after rigorously testing the security and reliability of our infrastructure.
As cloud computing grows in popularity, thousands of companies are simply rebranding their non-cloud products and services as “cloud computing.” Always dig deeper when evaluating cloud offerings and keep in mind that if we have to buy and manage hardware and software, what we’re looking at isn’t really cloud computing but a false cloud.
The future of Cloud computing
We will see more cloud-like capabilities in traditional data centers.
For those companies that need, or want, to continue to rely on the traditional corporate data center, new vendors are offering and will continue to offer, new cloud-like capabilities such as hyper-converged infrastructure. These are one-click, simple-to-use systems that are full of enterprise features and scalable like the cloud – ultimately delivering a cloud-like feel.
Consumer mobility use will continue to drive enterprise use.
Consumer mobility use has made cloud the default for the users of the most ubiquitous computer device on the planet – the smartphone. But it’s not just limited to consumers, as this mobility-cloud relationship is also penetrating the enterprise through BYOD (bring your own device), advancements in corporate mobile-device provisioning policies, and consumer-world-driven expectations of corporate IT.
One of the easiest ways for corporate IT to deal with these new and raised expectations is to offer cloud-like services including rebating/white-labeling public cloud services, such as Box or Dropbox used for enterprise storage. This means that “consumers” aren’t just growing their own personal cloud use, they are also driving up enterprise consumption too.
Big data will continue to drive adoption.
Big data and analytics have quite a complex “cloud interaction.” While the “brains” for these systems are definitely easier to access in the cloud, for instance, machine learning and Hardtop-type systems, enterprises can find it difficult to push large data sets into the cloud.
It’s why AWS (Amazon Web Services) and other cloud service providers will let us use sneaker net to physically post tapes and disks to them. Additionally, concerns over storing large, but confidential, data sets in the cloud will continue to drive the growth of hybrid analytics systems, which let the cloud systems access on-premise data sets via dedicated lines from the likes of AWS and Azure.
Cloud will drive increased adoption of SDN and NFV to create more efficient network architectures.
The cloud leaders such as AWS and Azure say that they couldn’t manage their networks without SDN (software-defined networking) and NFV (network functions virtualization) technologies. Azure is also taking its learning and bringing them out of the web-scale cloud environment and into the service provider and enterprise domains. Other traditional vendors are also pushing SDN and NFV for the data center, albeit from different perspectives, and new entrants like armor, Illumines, and others are adding value on top of SDN and NFV in a cloud context.
The larger global cloud service providers will continue to go regional.
While many regional cloud service providers have won business by playing the “locality card,” the leading global cloud players are now coming to most geographic regions. And they offer a service that cannot be matched by the smaller regional players. This capability gap might be fixed by the emergence of cloud federations such as HP Cloud28+ and Cisco Intercloud, but this remains to be seen.
Security will change from being a reason not to do cloud to being the reason to do it.
The leading cloud service providers are excellent at security, and offer the same best-in-class security features to everyone, at the same price. And this utilitarian approach to security will drive many companies to take a cloud-first approach – due to potentially better security at a lower cost. There are also numerous start-ups in this area that add even more security-goodness on top of existing cloud service provider security features. Ultimately, the additional cost of doing things on-premise because of security concerns should be questioned.
Cloud will democratize data processing.
Just as cloud democratizes security, it also democratizes data processing. In the 1990s it would cost companies millions of dollars, and take months if not years, to “do” data warehousing. Now, using the cloud, a teenager in their bedroom can do machine learning at a minimal cost.
Cloud will become an extraneous term that isn’t needed anymore.
Cloud is no longer the thing that is different, and increasingly the focus is on the things that aren’t cloud – with questions asked about why they are still needed. So, like the term “webmail” became just “email,” there’s no doubt that the use of the term “cloud” as a descriptor or differentiator will diminish.
Cloud computing has some limitations too.
According to Bruce Schneier, "The downside is that we will have limited customization options. Cloud computing is cheaper because of economies of scale, and like any outsourced task, we tend to get what we get. A restaurant with a limited menu is cheaper than a personal chef who can cook anything we want. Fewer options at a much cheaper price: it's a feature, not a bug and the cloud provider might not meet our legal needs. As a business, we need to weigh the benefits against the risks.
What is Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a computing concept that describes a future where everyday physical objects will be connected to the Internet and be able to identify themselves to other devices. The term is closely identified with RFID as the method of communication, although it also may include other sensor technologies, wireless technologies or QR codes.
The IoT is significant because an object that can represent itself digitally becomes something greater than the object by itself. No longer does the object relates just to us, but is now connected to surrounding objects and database data. When many objects act in unison, they are known as having "ambient intelligence."
Examples of objects that can fall into the scope of Internet of Things include connected security systems, thermostats, cars, electronic appliances, and lights in the household and commercial environments, alarm clocks, speaker systems, vending machines and more.
Businesses can leverage IoT applications to automate safety tasks (for example, notify authorities when a fire extinguisher in the building is blocked) to performing real-world A/B testing using networked cameras and sensors to detect how customers engage with products.
As far as the reach of the Internet of Things, there are more than 12 billion devices that can currently connect to the Internet, and researchers at IDC estimate that by 2020 there will be 26 times more connected things than people.
According to Gartner, consumer applications will drive the number of connected things, while enterprise will account for most of the revenue. IoT adoption is growing, with manufacturing and utilities estimated to have the largest installed base of Things by 2020.
Future of Internet of Things (IoT):
The year of IoT
According to Michael Westcott, Co-founder of Closer Still Media, the company behind Smart IoT London, history will show that 2016 “Is the BIG one; the point at which the digital revolution becomes truly pervasive and ubiquitous. It’s a year when we have to turn promise into reality and to allow the transformative power of the digital revolution to reach into every corner of every business and offer consumers, businesses, communities, cities, and even nations, a range of benefits which even now we can’t fully measure.”
This enthusiasm is echoed by Anne Lange, CEO of MENTIS, who believes that the IoT and Big Data will become a focus for both the public and private sectors this year, with the benefits of citywide IoT initiatives becoming increasingly apparent:
“For the first time in history, companies, cities, and industries are discovering very specific context-rich information and insights they’ve never had access to, gaining unprecedented possibilities to interact, deal and generate value. Smart cities’ urban space management offers one of the most interesting playgrounds to test the potential of the IoT.
“New technology such as integrated IoT platforms allows city stakeholders to connect with a huge amount of real-time information by correlating different sources of data to build smart services, despite multiple standards and communication protocols. It essentially helps city managers cope with the many challenges that come with growing populations and difficulties in creating new infrastructure, and can help ease congestion, inform city dwellers and visitors, change traffic behavior, and provide insights for better decision-making by combining together the entire spectrum of mobility data (traffic, parking, public transports). That will completely change the face of modern cities in the next 10 years.
“In an IoT world, a city will save energy by combining traffic and lighting information: huge car traffic overnight will automatically command the reduction of lamp-post luminosity, saving up to 20 percent energy, without any change in perception from the public.”
IoT creating new business models
As well as these social and environmental benefits, IoT has the potential to drive huge economic gains and create new and innovative business models, which several of Smart IoT London’s speakers commented on.
Dr. Richard Solely, Executive Director of the Industrial Internet Consortium believes that in 2016 we’ll see “Innovative revenue streams; fresh ways of looking at security and privacy; new analytics and new services that will offer better predictive maintenance, forecasting, customer service experiences, better asset efficiency; and most important – completely new business models that disrupt many current businesses.”
Ian Moyse, Rackspace, a Euro cloud UK Board Member and Cloud Industry Forum Governance Board Member added that “Disruption has already changed the world, with six companies now accounting for 53 per cent of the NASDAQ’s $664 billion market value (Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Gilead). In 2016 we can expect to see increased innovation and disruption throughout the year and beyond, as we are entering a time when legacy approaches, size, and brand, will be viewed as totally impertinent.
“Organizations will be challenged by the necessity to survive and by millennial entering businesses with no emotive ties to the past; therefore they need to rapidly become agile and become more receptive to enable business at the speed of technology. First mover advantage and today’s incredible speed of market grab enables unknown brands to rapidly become global leaders like we have never seen before.”
Show me the money
With so much talk about IoT, the use cases, the benefits and the devices, how do you actually make money from an IoT device? Moyse advises that “Businesses needs to uncouple themselves from old processes, mindsets, and technologies, and embrace what is now possible to better serve external and internal customers. As we have seen with disrupters such as Netflix, Uber, Airbnb, Just Eat and Bitcoin, customers are increasingly open to new, more efficient approaches, and providers are finding new ways of monetization. From subscription-based models through to fermium services, being monetized from the suppliers on the system or the value of the data mining capability the service provision gains for them (take Shazam as a case in point).”
According to Anthony Fulgoni, Business Development at Kii, “Monetisation will be a major discussion point for 2016 – the need to create regular monthly recurring revenue, which will fundamentally change the business model for device manufacturers. Before, the worry was the cost of the device, the cost of distribution, warranties and so on. In order to ensure the end user pays for the service, you first need to connect the device manufacturer to a mobile carrier, for example, which already has a billing relationship and can charge as part of their existing service.”
As noted by Fulgoni, a natural progression of monetization will be partnerships. “We‘ve already seen this trend take off in 2015 with the likes of EMC teaming up with Vodafone to develop a platform for industrial IoT service development, Huawei partnering with German software giant SAP and testing and platform provider Jasper announcing a strategic partnership with Microsoft and hooking up with IBM. As IoT development accelerates, we will see more of this and in particular major mobile network operators who will be looking to others to provide additional ’smart’ services to end users, such as device management, analytics, and platform services.”
Technological developments
2016 will also see significant technological advances, as several speakers discussed.
“The IoT market today is like Lego blocks 20 years ago. Back then, diverse building blocks of various sizes and colors were available; with imagination, patience, and skills one was able to build everything and anything,” commented Srdjan Krco, Ph.D. E.E., CEO and co-founder, DunavNET.
“Similarly, with IoT platforms, radio technologies, sensors, data processing, visualization and other software components, one can build any IoT system, given adequate expertise, skills, and imagination. What is missing are pre-packaged IoT solutions that combine all necessary components, from sensors, to radio technology to cloud platform and web and mobile applications, optimized for particular application, but built using generic, reusable components to ensure interoperability and rapid expansion – similar to the way Lego packages selected components required to build fire stations, cities, Star Wars or robots, together with detailed assembly instructions.
“In 2016, IoT market needs productization, i.e. ready to use (“plug and play”) solutions, optimized for vertical use cases, but built using horizontal platforms and components. Furthermore, these plug and play solutions need to be widely available on different marketplaces, providing global reach and seamless end-user experience during deployment and usage, hiding away all the complexity behind.”
Ian Moyse, Rackspace, added “Customer service and delivery are now kings, and with the Internet of Things we will see creative leverages being applied. For example, imagine a fridge that can automatically order food for you, being provided free by a retailer on the basis that it is tuned to only order replenishment products from them or a device that monitors your driving route, and time of day, and rewards you with discounts on your car tax for avoiding peak roads at peak times. The possibilities are endless now that the barriers of technology and affordability have been removed.”
The ‘uncomfortable middle ground’
However, despite the huge benefits IoT will bring, there are vital issues that must be addressed to unlock its full potential. According to Dean Johnson FCSD, Head of Innovation at Bandwidth, “We’re living in the ‘Uncomfortable Middle Ground’, that awkward gray area between the creation of platforms and devices and realizing their potential. Therefore, in order to be ground-breaking, plenty of good (and bad) ideas will fall by the wayside in the rush to offer a seamless experience. That top layer is by far the toughest to crack but the rewards for perseverance are definitely high. With great arm-waving come great responsibility and the need to deliver on a promise. In order to achieve this, our connected world needs to be truly connected.”
The responsibility mentioned by Johnson is also echoed by Mike Weston, CEO at data science consultancy Profusion:
“If the IoT does gain widespread adoption, there comes a host of issues with securing consumers’ data, which is both a blessing and a curse. At the moment, it is generally considered that innovation is outstripping the security of IoT devices. These could become rich pickings for any hackers, should one of these devices become commonplace in every home.
The data produced by IoT devices will allow business to create better-targeted ads, more informed products and be better at resourcing. What each business will need to understand when using data produced by the IoT, is that each individual has a certain tolerance for ‘creepiness’ and businesses must not exceed that, to avoid a potential public backlash.”
CONCLUSION
The integration of Cloud Computing and Internet of Things represents the next big leap ahead in the Future Internet. The new applications arising from this integration – we called Cloud & IoT– open up new exciting directions for business and research. We surveyed the literature in order to identify the complementary aspects of Cloud and IoT and the main drivers for integrating them into a unique environment. Since the adoption of the Cloud & IoT paradigm enabled several new applications, we derived the main research challenges of interest for each of them. We further analyzed such challenges in order to identify current research directions. Finally, we surveyed available platforms and projects by comparing their main aspects and identified open issues and future research directions in this field.
Thanks to the Cloud & IoT paradigm everyday life and activities will be potentially improved for everyone: smart cities will enable more efficient public services and promote new business opportunities, ubiquitous healthcare applications will improve the quality of life for many patients, etc. These new application scenarios pose important research challenges such as the heterogeneity of involved devices and technologies; the required performance, reliability, scalability and security; privacy preservation; legal and social aspects. The open issues of Cloud & IoT paradigm pertain mainly power and
Energy efficiency, SLA enforcement, pricing and billing, security and privacy. The envisioned future directions include the identification of the definitive solution for naming and addressing things, the large-scale support for multi-networking, and the convergence toward a common open service platform environment.
