IoT: Two schools, two approaches with future

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IoT: Two schools, two approaches

Zeeshan Iqbal

5 days ago·3 min read

Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash

A strange debate

Twenty years ago, a team of engineers was working on a project. Where they were automating the systems of the food industry.

Their goal was to maintain food temperature in the factory in freezers in open areas on assembly lines everywhere from start to end.
They deployed their sensors and controllers and connected the Air-Conditioners and Storage freezer with those controllers.
In case of any nasty temperature, controllers immediately adjust the relevant air conditioners and freezers.
This system was interconnected and spanned across many buildings. Data sensed by the sensors of area 1 was transmitted to the controller in the second area, and that controller can signal to different devices in other areas.

That system documentation tells us that system is an embedded system. All the staff on that team wrote the same in the portfolio the same thing. Event the client business documents say the same thing.

But In the year 2021, two engineers were in an argument over the type of this project. The first guy called it an IoT system. But the second one insisted that it is an embedded system, not an IoT system. Their further conversation will reveal their point of views.

1st engineer said that this system is a network where data is flowing from sensors to controllers. And instructions from controllers to machines. Can’t you see? Data from one area of the factory is directly affecting the controls in another part of the factory. It is what IoT is supposed to be. Now our definition of the Internet is a network of networks. So there is a network in this system with many small networks.

The second one laughed and said, “you are saying this?”

2nd engineer explained that in this system data coming from the sensor is just used to decide on that particular time after that we don’t have that data anymore, But the IoT system also saves that data. And that data is the most value able thing. Which might be used to predict the system behaviors or business Intelligence, he told that his CEO once said.

“That data is more value able then oil”

Why this debate matters?

1. From the technology respective there won’t be much difference in circuits and software other than we need to have data handling teams and engineers we need some more space to store data and a little bit different databases.
2. But when it comes to business, there is a huge difference. The one who is the first school will sell hardware for money but the other one will sell hardware for data. One is Netscape and the other one is Google Chrome. I hope you can understand but the topic is not closed here. We will go into more details in another CYBR note.