THE INTERNET OF THINGS COMES TO THE ENTERPRISE
used . The device itself ( the first tier ) connects directly back to a cloud- or datacentre-based service ( the second tier ). The analysis occurs at the datacentre and , if action is required , then this is transmitted back to the device . Because consumer devices do not usually require time-critical decisions , this process does not negatively impact the application ’ s performance . For example , if a consumer uses a smartphone to instruct the home thermostat to turn up the air conditioning , it is usually not a problem if it takes a minute or so to complete the action .
This is not true in an enterprise environment where decisions can be measured in fractions of a second . Taking the example of the automated train control system , a minute ’ s delay in reducing the speed of a train can
Much of the discussion about the Internet of Things ( IoT ) has centred on consumer products like wearable devices , smart cars and appliances . result in a catastrophic accident . Or if the under-voltage sensor in an electrical grid took minutes to bring additional capacity online when voltage started to drop , entire power grids could go down and the costs to industry could be massive .
Another consideration is the bandwidth required for IoT applications . When the consumer is paying for the bandwidth it doesn ’ t matter how much bandwidth the application requires .
By contrast , in an enterprise every byte counts and shaving just a single byte from a message can save the organisation millions of dollars in transmission costs in industrial IoT use cases . So it is crucial for enterprises to consider bandwidth implications when designing IoT applications .
With these considerations in mind it becomes clear that the traditional twotier architecture is simply too slow for important data and too expensive for unimportant data . A better approach is to build a three-tier architecture that includes a new , functionally capable middle or controller tier .
Near-Field Processing Adding this third tier between the device
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