New industry solutions to simplify machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and data analysis in the cloud are emerging every day. These solutions target both new and existing infrastructures that can benefit from a connected environment. Successful companies seeking to gain a competitive edge will leverage these solutions to help businesses they serve manage the complex interdependencies between devices and the enterprise Information Technology (IT) world.
IDC expects Internet of Things (IoT) technology and services revenue worldwide to grow from $4.8 trillion in 2012 to $7.3 trillion by 2017. In order for OEMs to win a larger piece of that potential revenue stream in hardware sales, they must understand and help customers solve the complexities of back end cloud-enabled M2M and Intelligent System applications. Businesses need “off the shelf” purpose-built solutions to address interoperability and seamlessly connect, aggregate, filter and share data from the edge of the network to the cloud.
Where M2M Projects Most Often Fail
As enterprise customers develop M2M applications and connect to the cloud, the ability to remotely monitor, collect, store
and analyze data is essential. When these customers attempt to build a distributed connected system, they run into a number of roadblocks that go beyond their corporate core competencies and take precious time and resources from the project.
There are several places where M2M projects can fail (Figure 1), from selecting and integrating sensors and meeting certification requirements to using optimum M2M protocols and managing the system lifecycle. The M2M marketplace is full of hundreds
of disparate technologies that have to be cobbled together from different vendors to form a solution, which results in a great deal of work to unite these diverse technologies into a production ready solution.
Businesses seeking to gain entry into the IoT may not have the IT or technical expertise
to solve all of these problems in house. Technology solutions from experienced IoT providers help remove potential roadblocks and can improve hardware sales and help customers scale up and expand their projects with little change to the infrastructure. With the right building blocks, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) can offer an end-to- end solution to build solid M2M applications that are future proof and connect to the cloud for data integration.
Building Blocks for a Successful M2M Application
Successful M2M applications leverage proven building blocks from device hardware and software to M2M/IoT integration platforms. OEMs who offer application-ready solutions can help customers by reducing design risk, accelerating time-to-market, and reducing the total cost of ownership.
1. Multi-Service Gateways
Multi-Service gateways are ideally suited
for M2M applications as they connect sensors, actuators, and devices to the business enterprise. These gateways enable bidirectional communication between the field and the cloud and offer local processing and storage capabilities to provide offline services and near real-time management and control of the devices in the field (Figure 2).
The multi-service gateway approach minimizes development risk by using off-the-shelf, purpose-built devices designed to meet vertical market value propositions. Data is delivered from the edge to the enterprise using common protocols to effectively decouple
data providers and data consumers. This approach provides design flexibility and the ability to future proof investments by integrating and consolidating data streams.
Eurotech’s ReliaGATE Multi-Service Gateways are ready-to- deploy industrial grade smart devices that enable communications, computation power, simplified application deployment and M2M platform integration for immediate service generation.
Pre-Certified Hardware Simplifies M2M Projects
Enabling cellular technology is one of the toughest and most time- consuming challenges enterprise customers face. Eurotech’s ReliaCELL rugged mountable cellular adapter simplifies the cellular design challenges of IoT hardware and gateways for fast and highly- reliable cellular connectivity. The ReliaCELL comes certified and carrier-approved so customers can avoid the hassle of certifying their systems with cellular carriers and to get to market quickly.
By modularizing the cellular component of embedded product development, cellular connectivity can be added to systems simply, without making compromises on ruggedization. The ReliaCELL also allows for easy migration to more modern technologies should the product roadmap evolve from 2G to 3G to 4G, maintaining key system components without incurring significant hardware costs.
2. Java-Based Application Framework
The Multi-Service Gateway approach solves a number of integration problems and unifies disparate systems. Customers need an application framework solution to put a layer between the operating system and the business application on the gateway. The ideal application framework abstracts the underlying hardware platform
so that user applications can be deployed in new industries and environments simply by selecting an appropriately equipped and qualified hardware platform, with no requirement to port or recode the application.
Deploying field-based devices involves several layers that customers must reconcile, including field protocols, Global Position Services (GPS) services, administration Graphical User Interface (GUI), customer business logic, and a cloud client. An application framework can enable all of this functionality by encapsulating the complexity of the lower layers and creating a foundation layer upon which customers can build their application and start with their value add from day one.
The Eurotech EverywareTM Software Framework (ESF) acts as
an overlay to the gateway hardware and operating system for a full application-ready, Java-based software stack designed to simplify connection of legacy devices to the cloud. ESF is a comprehensive application framework layer between the operating system and the device software application, built on industry standard components ensuring dramatically improved time to market and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) (Figure 3). VDC Research notes the value of such a solution in their 2013 Vendor Spotlight on Eurotech: “The company’s
device-centric Everyware Software Framework and Everyware Cloud combine in an effort to make it easier to connect, manage, and operate devices while securely sharing data with applications, IT systems, and people increasing situational awareness and operational efficiency.”
Developers adopting ESF can quickly start their application development leveraging the Open Service Gateway initiative (OSGi) framework and Java, which will improve the reuse of code, reliability and time
to market. OSGi technology is a set of specifications that defines a dynamic component system for Java. These specifications reduce software complexity by providing a modular architecture for large- scale distributed systems as well as small, embedded applications.
Building on proven architecture and software building blocks that would require many years to develop, the use of an M2M application framework like ESF will result in shorter, more deterministic device software development. Furthermore ESF provides powerful functions for device and application management, an element often overlooked in IoT projects. The operation and management of the distributed devices in the field is one of the major challenges and cost factors in M2M/IoT solutions.
ESF has been ported to various third party boards and systems and has been made available to the Open Source community through the Eclipse Foundation Kura project.
By offering a cost-effective, flexible and IT- oriented device application framework on top of multi-service gateways, OEMs and System Integrators (SI) can help enterprises quickly develop, prototype, and deploy secure solutions for IoT services and applications.
3. M2M Integration Platform
An M2M integration platform designed to act as an intermediary system between the distributed devices and the applications making use of the data can further reconcile the varied technologies found in complex M2M projects and help customers connect
to the cloud quickly. An effective M2M integration platform must act as an operating system for the IoT, enabling the transfer of device data independent of any programming language, platform, or underlying technology.
A successful M2M integration platform must also offer the means to perform effective lifecycle management of the devices in
the field and integrate seamlessly with the enterprise IT world, using IT best practices and architectures. Clients today have the choice to build out their own backend server system and associated software elements, or look to a cloud-based system where much of the solution has been provided. Which solution is best depends on many factors including: core competencies, complexity, capital investment, time to market requirements and more. Eurotech enables the Internet of Things with their M2M integration platform, the Everyware Cloud. It is an integration platform as a service (iPaaS), which simplifies device and data management by connecting distributed devices over secure and reliable cloud services.
enterprise side either on-premise or in the cloud, allowing applications, databases, business intelligence and analytics software to act on valuable data from the field.
Conclusion
As technology evolves, vast numbers of isolated legacy devices remain, typically connected in a series of silos, each with
one type of device connected in some way
to a single application using a specialized protocol. These devices need to be connected regardless of the silos and made interoperable to avoid the prohibitively large cost of replacing existing field devices with new, Internet-enabled components. Many companies want to implement M2M solutions to connect legacy equipment to the IoT,
but lack the expertise to assemble, code, test, and implement the required solution components, programmable multi-service gateways and an M2M integration platform, in a timely and cost-effective manner.
There is a great opportunity for OEMs and SIs to help companies who lack the in- house expertise to develop the device and application software, including the business logic, required at the edge of the enterprise environment to connect these legacy systems to the cloud and enable end-to- end analytics. Solutions built from Eurotech Multi-Service Gateway running ESF along with the Everyware Cloud eliminate the gaps between these disparate systems to enable the Internet of Things in both brownfield and greenfield environments.