Pawan Fangaria
New member
We know the IoT space is struggling for standards. The devices are heterogeneous, there is no common way of communication between them. One may ask, is a common standard really needed? what is needed to be done? It may not be so apparent at this nascent stage, but looking at the massive growth (billions of devices connecting with each other) in near future, the standard is definitely required and needs to support inter-operability, security, simplicity of communication and so on across the devices in the world.
When do we see a common standard to be in place?
Well, ideally speaking it must be today or as early as possible. But that's never possible due to several factors that include know-how, infrastructure, investments, practical experience and trials, and so on.
That's where the reality comes into picture -
The first comes open-source. We have so many M2M protocols - SCADA, UPNP, IGD, DPWS, COAP... and software platforms like OSGi, Mango, OpenSCADA, Proview, VSCP, AllJoyn (led by Qualcomm)...
Then there are communication protocols like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee,....
And we are seeing rapid development of IoT platforms from big houses like Google, Apple, Samsung, Intel, ARM and so on.
The Big Reality is that there will be heavy competition between these platforms. If the things go as it has gone in the past (e.g. in EDA space - although VHDL/VITAL came as well defined standards, Verilog was used heavily in the design industry and prevailed. There are other examples, but I will not go into that detail here), the winner will become the de-facto standard. But wait, things in IoT are not so simple, I will talk about it a little later. So, the standard in all probability cannot evolve in the short term, it has to churn through the market and will come out in due course as a natural process. The market forces will determine the standard(s)!
The Linux foundation has started IoTivity to push for standards. I see that also competing with AllJoyn and Intel platform.
Now, what's possible?
As I said above, things are not so simple in IoT space. In my opinion, there cannot be one common standard or platform in this space. We see there are multiple verticals in this space - Transportation, Industrial, Health, Environment, smart home, smart city, business logistics, personal and so on. There will be multiple standards; I would be happy to see one for each vertical; of course more verticals can join to share one standard provided the devices used in those have similarities.
From technical perspective, I see different type of devices for these different verticals, so to keep the standards simple, it would be wise to look at an standard for a particular vertical. Yes, within a vertical also the devices can be heterogeneous; so there the intelligent state-of-art work has to take place to unite the communications between heterogeneous devices (e.g. through the use of proxies) to adhere to a common standard.
But then we will have to wait for vertical wise standards also, because that also has to pass through the competitive forces, need to see which platform(s) gets wider popularity and encompasses maximum usage. Opinions, Comments welcome!
When do we see a common standard to be in place?
Well, ideally speaking it must be today or as early as possible. But that's never possible due to several factors that include know-how, infrastructure, investments, practical experience and trials, and so on.
That's where the reality comes into picture -
The first comes open-source. We have so many M2M protocols - SCADA, UPNP, IGD, DPWS, COAP... and software platforms like OSGi, Mango, OpenSCADA, Proview, VSCP, AllJoyn (led by Qualcomm)...
Then there are communication protocols like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee,....
And we are seeing rapid development of IoT platforms from big houses like Google, Apple, Samsung, Intel, ARM and so on.
The Big Reality is that there will be heavy competition between these platforms. If the things go as it has gone in the past (e.g. in EDA space - although VHDL/VITAL came as well defined standards, Verilog was used heavily in the design industry and prevailed. There are other examples, but I will not go into that detail here), the winner will become the de-facto standard. But wait, things in IoT are not so simple, I will talk about it a little later. So, the standard in all probability cannot evolve in the short term, it has to churn through the market and will come out in due course as a natural process. The market forces will determine the standard(s)!
The Linux foundation has started IoTivity to push for standards. I see that also competing with AllJoyn and Intel platform.
Now, what's possible?
As I said above, things are not so simple in IoT space. In my opinion, there cannot be one common standard or platform in this space. We see there are multiple verticals in this space - Transportation, Industrial, Health, Environment, smart home, smart city, business logistics, personal and so on. There will be multiple standards; I would be happy to see one for each vertical; of course more verticals can join to share one standard provided the devices used in those have similarities.
From technical perspective, I see different type of devices for these different verticals, so to keep the standards simple, it would be wise to look at an standard for a particular vertical. Yes, within a vertical also the devices can be heterogeneous; so there the intelligent state-of-art work has to take place to unite the communications between heterogeneous devices (e.g. through the use of proxies) to adhere to a common standard.
But then we will have to wait for vertical wise standards also, because that also has to pass through the competitive forces, need to see which platform(s) gets wider popularity and encompasses maximum usage. Opinions, Comments welcome!