This chapter covers IoT enablers, these are the companies offering services to support the development of IoT services.
Service Providers
No IoT book would be complete without mentioning some of the major IoT players. In this chapter, we will take a brief look at some of the major IoT providers (enablers). They are a key part of the IoT revolution as they facilitate the creation of the IoT services by offering IoT platforms, tools, and professional services. These platforms and services decrease complexity and cost, reducing the time to market and enable many of the innovative IoT services to become viable businesses.
Overview of Assessing IoT Enablers
Service portfolio | Is all the required functionality available from one provider? A “one-stop shop” can simplify the management of IoT services, and this can be critical for smaller service providers. This isn’t an issue for many of the bigger services, and they often use more than one provider when the service has scaled (introducing competition between suppliers). |
Ease of use | Does the platform require complex programming skills or contain complex platform-specific tools? |
Application layer | What tools are available to implement the service access functionality (in other words, portals, dashboards, and so on)? |
Data management | How is the IoT data retrieved from the devices stored, and how easy is it to access and manipulate? |
Device management | IoT services require functionality to reduce complexity for managing and accessing devices as volumes grow. What tools are available? |
Professional services | What services are available to support the IoT service in terms of technology and growth? |
Security | What level of security is provided? How is access and identity management implemented? How are devices made secure, and what level of data encryption is available? Are higher security features available for highly regulated or government-related IoT services? |
Compatibility | Apart from supporting the current devices, what other protocols may be required as the service evolves? Can an IoT service be integrated with other components from other providers? |
Many of the major IoT enablers are also providing IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, or a combination of them. The trend suggests that the major players will continue to expand their portfolios to include components required by most IoT services. This reduces complexity, but the downside is that once a service is deployed, it may become increasingly difficult to change platform (although platforms such as ThingWorx are now compatible with AWS, Azure, and so on). Many IoT service owners only consider the initial cost and technical requirements, but they should also be assessed on their capability to support growth and their business support functions. In general, the major IoT providers all have global deployment capabilities and can support business growth, but the costs can vary significantly.
I will give a brief overview of some of the major IoT providers. There are obvious omissions such as Google, Cisco, Ayla, and more, but I have included only a few for illustration purposes. I will give an overview of AWS, IBM and Azure (enablers from a cloud service background), Ericsson, Huawei (from a connectivity perspective), and finally ThingWorx (from an application enablement background).
Note
The industry vertical–specific providers (such as Siemens and GE for manufacturing) should be analyzed to assess suitability within each sector.
I should point out that none of these is endorsed over others, and it is important that service owners perform their own investigation for their specific business needs.
AWS
AWS started with cloud and infrastructure as a service and has become one of the major leaders of IoT. It provides a comprehensive range of services that reduce the complexity required to create and commercialize IoT services. Its core IoT service allows devices and gateways to be connected to rule engines in an elastic, scalable manner. The device “shadow” models the physical device, and the data from the device can be reused easily, in other words, routed to the other Amazon services such Kinesis, DynamoDB, Lambda, S3, and Amazon ML. The cost of Amazon services needs to be calculated carefully as the range of payment possibilities is quite extensive due to the wide range of services on offer. Fortunately, they provide a calculator to simplify this task.
AWS adds professional services to the platform capabilities for enterprises to assist in the development of IoT services in terms of architecture and business.
AWS IoT Core: Provides the capability to securely connect devices to the cloud and other devices
AWS IoT Device: Offers the capability to register, manage, and monitor IoT devices.
AWS IoT Analytics: Offers tools to automate data analysis from IoT devices with reporting capabilities
Greengrass: Facilitates local deployment of IoT services including Lambda and ML capabilities
Amazon ML: Offers machine learning APIs for advanced IoT functions
Kinesis : Offers data streaming and processing capabilities
Cloudwatch: Offers monitoring tools for applications, devices, databases, and so on
AWS Developer: Offers a wide range of tools supporting open source development
Microsoft IoT Azure
Microsoft is another leading player with a full array of IaaS and PaaS services, allowing rapid development of IoT services. It offers a wide range of tools that are scalable and can be easily integrated with other software and hardware. As with other easily IoT platform service providers, it charges on a pay-as-you-grow model, in other words, based on the number of messages/data sent/received. This is a model that lends itself well to IoT AaS. As with most platforms, it offers SDKs that are both open source and for the Windows platform, and it has a wide range of partners with certified devices and starter kits.
It provides extensive support with professional services to assist with the development of IoT services.
IoT HUB: Enables the connection and management of devices with bidirectional data flow including device simulation and edge computing
IoT Azure Central: Enables the creation of IoT applications with connected devices that offers central monitoring with device rules
IoT Solution: Provides solutions that can be used as templates for accelerating IoT service development
IoT Edge: Permits Azure services (such as AI and analytics) to be deployed locally
Event HUB: Enables the management of events and data received from devices including triggering
Machine Learning: Offers cloud-based cognitive API services
Analytics: Provides a wide range of analytics services including real-time analysis, big data, and machine learning functions
Developer: Offers a Visual Studio developer environment supporting many open source SDKs, languages, and environments
Huawei
Huawei provides a cloud service with PaaS through IoT partnerships and has developed many IoT services. Currently it offers IoT capabilities through its products by exposing APIs, with an open ecosystem built on IoT, cloud computing, and big data technology. The IoT Connection Management Platform contains a lot of the functionality required by IoT services. It provides a remote lab for developing and testing IoT services after entering into a partnership agreement.
OceanConnect: Provides a developer environment with APIs and IoT applications, simplifying device access, and network connection management.
EC-IoT: It implements Huawei edge computing service via an Agile controller and gateway
Communication: IoT connection platform providing E2E communication capabilities
PTC/ThingWorx
This is an IoT platform providing capabilities to connect, build, manage, analyze, and launch new IoT services. It offers rapid application development tools that can monitor, manage, and control connected devices. It allows bidirectional support for remote data collection, providing secure connectivity between devices. It also provides device/sensor management/integration with third-party systems (including Amazon and Azure IoT platforms). In its portfolio it offers supporting tools such as a developer portal, a marketplace, and services such as AR and VR.
Foundation: Provides rapid application development tools for connected devices with an Application Environment Platform (AEP), connection services, edge capabilities, and device/data management
IoT Manager: Provides asset, event, and workflow management tools that can assist operational management activities
Analytics: Provides an analytics tool that includes predictive capabilities to enable automation of analytics with edge capabilities
Studio: Provides advanced and easy to use AR functionality including capabilities for building and publishing AR applications
Manufacturing: Provides ThingWorx manufacturing apps, which are a set of role-based starter apps built on the IoT platform
IBM
IBM is typically an IaaS provider, but it is moving up the stack with services such as data and device management, analytics, and security. Its main product is Watson, which allows users to define devices, receive, and analyze data. It is constantly increasing the portfolio of Watson, which has been traditionally considered an AI platform. It now includes a lot more IoT-related functionality. It also offers Bluemix, a powerful suite of tools offering the ability to create IoT applications by providing SDKs and open APIs.
Watson IoT: Provides a cloud-based connectivity service for connecting and managing IoT devices. It offers the ability to manage and integrate IoT device data, and incorporates blockchain technology to increase security
Analytics: Provides a wide range of advanced analytics capabilities combined with advanced machine learning capabilities
Developer: Provides a cloud-based suite of platform tools to develop IoT services and manage devices
IoT Edge: Provides the possibility to deploy AI and analytics on edge devices
Ericsson
Ericsson entered the IoT space with the acquisition of the Device Connection Platform, providing connectivity management services. It has been evolving its offering with platforms such as the IoT Accelerator that offer additional IoT services such as data and device management and so on.
Connectivity: Provides enterprises with the ability to manage the connectivity of their devices
Orchestration: Provides device and data management features, including data modeling
Integration: Provides an automation framework that offers functionality for analytics processing, data storage, a monetization engine, security, and so on
IoT Marketplace: Enables an enterprise’s administration capabilities, developer and partner onboarding, API exposure, and a white-label portal to develop ecosystems
IoT Enablers: Professional Services
The IoT revolution has arrived partly because the complexity of producing IoT services has decreased dramatically. IoT services that address specific use cases are easier to create because of advances in technology, manufacturing, and communication. However, not everything can be automated, and there is still a need for professional services to complement the advances in technology.
Many of the IoT enablers offer horizontal platforms (in other words, they support multiple vertical industries) complemented with professional services. Often, they can provide specialized knowledge leveraging ecosystems and experience from solutions developed on their platforms.
The importance of professional services can be illustrated by my discussions with a manufacturing plant that wanted to perform a digital transformation to increase productivity and reduce costs. They were in the procurement process and investigating whether implementing services on an IoT platform could benefit their business. I presented our IoT platform explaining the usual services such as device management, data management, and analytics services. Before everyone fell asleep, I was asked, “There are numerous platforms available; what makes your platform the one they should select?” My honest was answer was that there were better platforms that could serve a lot of their use cases. However, we could provide the professional support services that were required to realize the full transformation. It couldn’t be done with technology alone. We could offer consulting for process optimization, migration, transformation, and an operations center to support field services. The differentiator for many IoT enablers will not always be the IoT services available. It will be the additional professional services on offer to support the business objectives such as global expansion, digital transformation, optimization, and cost reduction.
IoT professional services
IoT service owners can request these services from IoT enablers, but they should also consider offering these professional services to their customers as they can be a useful additional revenue stream.
Presales Support
IoT concepts (like AaS business models) and services are new to many industry verticals. This introduces challenges for service owners to communicate their sales pitch during presales discussions with potential customers. If the service owner does not have the sufficient experience or competence, contracting sales support can be a useful solution. It should be considered at service launch as it may prove to be a short-term solution to develop quality sales material and avail of the broader knowledge in the IoT space.
Training sales and marketing staff to develop the value proposition
Creating and developing sales presentations
Supporting the sales organization from a technical and business perspective
Capturing new service requirements to be delivered to service managers based on customer feedback
Transition Management
Transition management is normally carried out by an operational consultant who facilitates the smooth introduction of new IoT services. They assist the customer organizations to fully understand the new service and how to achieve maximum benefit from its introduction.
Support customer organizations in transitioning from the delivery project to a commercial operational setup.
Ensure the customer representatives are familiar with service documentation and understand the support processes/procedures.
Act as an SPOC to address post-deployment-related questions.
Provide support and mentoring to the customer managers who are responsible for the service when the transition period expires. It can be useful for customers to appoint a “shadow” for the transitional manager during the transition period.
Identify areas of improvement within the customer’s organization, regarding processes and interactions between the customer and service owner.
Customized Reporting
Typically, the service description outlines a set of standard reports that are accessible through a service portal. However, service providers should expect to receive customized reporting requests based on a customer’s unique business requirements. Offering a professional service to develop reports in a specific format or require a change to the availability of reports can be a useful additional revenue stream. The cost of customized reports should be calculated as a combination of the initial development costs, the recurring delivery costs, and the lifecycle management of the report. Note that automation is key to controlling operational costs related to the recurring delivery of customized reporting.
Business Consulting
The transitional management service may lead to the customer requesting business consulting to provide advisory services. This service provides the customers with analysis on all aspects of their business to improve performance, achieve competitive advantage, and ultimately increase the success of the service. It is most beneficial when the consultant can provide specialist domain knowledge and market insights.
It requires a broad understanding of the IoT service landscape in terms of business, financial, IT, and network challenges. The consultant can leverage execution experience from other customers to propose recommendations related to service operations, marketing, sales, road map features, and so on.
Device and Application Verification
Device and application verification is required to ensure that new device types and applications comply with service limitations (usually related to technical or capacity constraints).
The tests typically include compatibility verification for signaling, data transfer, and capacity measurements. More advanced tests may include device security checks or battery consumption. If possible, these tests should be automated in a lab environment, but it can be more cost effective to give customers access to the lab to perform the tests under supervision.
The importance of this can be illustrated by a catastrophic chain of events when a customer introduced a new device without performing mandatory acceptance tests. The device crashed the service by sending unrecognizable messages (due to an incompatible format). This resulted in repeated signaling attempts from the device (as no acknowledgment message was received) Finally, the service experienced signaling congestion on the communication layer, and certified devices were unable to send messages, causing a complete service outage. The lesson to be learned is that all changes to the service should be verified before being introduced to the live environment. Executing a device application and service can be a useful tool to avoid these issues.
Data Migration
Data migration usually consists of a project to transfer the existing customer data from a legacy service to the new IoT service system components. In its most basic form, it can be the transfer of a database, but this too can become a complex operation. It requires significant testing with a fallback plan in place in case of issues. The process should be offered in a very service-oriented method, implying that the customer does not know or get involved in the complexities of the migration. The cost can be significant if automated tools are not available for transforming data structures; therefore, a prestudy may be required to ensure its feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
Application Development and Maintenance
Customers often require outsourcing of software development and maintenance as they do not have the capacity or competence to develop and maintain software in a cost-effective manner. The service is usually performed by engineers who are competent with the application layer of the IoT stack and its interaction with middle-layer components. The requests may consist of a new application that communicates with existing service modules or feature add-ons. The development of the service or add-ons will be a one-off cost, but service providers should also consider the maintenance as a recurring cost.
Operations Service Desk and Field Services
Customers or service owners may request the outsourcing of service desk operational activities if there isn’t enough scale or revenue being generated to merit its creation in the operations organization. Scale is required to be cost effective, and this can be a challenge for newly launched services.
Register issues or service requests
Evaluate information received and complement if necessary
Solve the customer problem directly or escalate to the appropriate organization
Monitor the progress of the fault or service request
Manage the supporting processes for fault resolution, including change management together with the external service providers
The service desk connects to the field services organization by registering and managing requests that require actions by field service engineers. The field services activities are required if engineers cannot complete activities remotely, such as if an engineer must travel to replace a remotely located faulty device. Outsourcing of field operations is most cost-effective if the deployment of the service/devices is over a wide geographical area or in the early phases of service launch. If the device volumes haven’t reached critical mass, it may not be efficient to have engineers dedicated to field operations.
Most field service operation organizations implement workforce management via an enterprise service bus (see Chapter 3). It reduces opex by automating business processes and providing the intelligent scheduling of activities to improve the efficiency of the field operations. For example, if a customer registers a request, it automatically initiates the scheduling of a work order that is sent to a field engineer planning their daily/weekly activities. Workforce management can also provide track and trace capabilities by storing information regarding all service requests and can provide valuable analytical information to improve efficiency.
Systems Integration
IoT services should have clear definitions, clear interfaces, and plan for scaling. The implications of this are that the service should not require complex system integration activities. However, this may not be the case when the customer has business-critical legacy systems and the service provider should consider integrations as an additional chargeable service. System integration needs to be carefully scoped and priced to ensure it fits into the business, technical, and operational models of the service. I have rejected many service integration requests from customers as they required modification to service components and there was little chance of reuse. System integration activities are normally carried out by DevOps engineers, and complex projects can put considerable pressure on that organization. The subsequent maintenance of the service also needs to be planned and priced on a time and material basis.