A Compilation of Internet of Things (IoT) Platforms Comparative Analysis
In the past two years, there have been few surveys about IoT platform providers, which monitor the progress of IoT implementations across different functional domains. This article compiles and summarizes the outcomes of these surveys as mentioned below.
Review of IoT Platform Leaders
Review of IoT Application Development Domain
Review of IoT Device Management Domain
Review of IoT Heterogeneity Management Domain
Review of IoT Data Management Domain
Review of IoT Statistical Analysis Domain
Review of IoT Deployment Management Domain
Review of IoT Monitoring Management Domain
Review of IoT Visualization Domain
Review of IoT Research Domain
Forrester Wave IoT Platforms Scorecard (the higher the better) per August 2018
Common Problems of the Existing IoT Platforms
- Heterogeneity: Several IoT platforms are unable to interact with various communication technologies/protocols
2. Context-awareness: Most IoT platforms have problem in deciding what data need to be processed
3. IoT Node Identity: Most IoT platforms still use IPv4 as network addressing
4. Energy Management: Green energy sources should involve more to support sensors/devices e.g. solar, wind
5. Fault tolerance: Single source of power for devices e.g. battery. A solution is to utilize energy-aware algorithms that may optimize power consumption
Conclusion
The choice of IoT platform may depend on the purpose of deployment itself; it could be for device management, data analytics, city monitoring, factory automation, etc. It may also be affected by the platform cost and government regulations such as localization of data storage, data privacy, import tax, and whatnot.
The leading IoT platforms could have the tendency to continue growing and attracting more resellers and customers, while the up-and-rising platforms may proceed maintaining their niche markets — and at the same time diversifying their reach since there are still plenty of worldwide cities to approach.
Specially in this coronavirus pandemic season, IoT platforms would play a major part in public monitoring and control, hence their value would only increase over time, and yes they are here to stay.
Bibliography
- P. P. Ray. “A survey of IoT cloud platforms.” Available online: https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2314728816300149
2. “The Forrester Wave™: Industrial IoT Software Platforms, Q3 2018”
3. “10 Best IoT Platforms in 2018. IoT Technology Forecast.” Available online: https://da-14.com/blog/10-best-iot-platforms-iot-technology-forecast
4. S. Singh. “Top 20 IoT Platforms in 2018.” Available online: https://internetofthingswiki.com/top-20-iot-platforms/634/
