IoT trends dominating 2018 – Part 2

IoT is shaping up to be a breakout year for IoT deployments as many organizations are incorporating IoT technologies into their products, processes and workflows. As per Gartner’s prediction, there will be nearly 20 billion devices connected to the IoT by 2020, and IoT product and service suppliers will generate more than $300 billion in revenue.

Processing extends to the IoT edge

Data fabrics and computation are not only spanning on-premises facilities into multiple clouds but extending even further. Full-scale data fabrics are extending right to the edge next to devices, and, in some cases, threads of the fabric are extending right into the devices themselves. There is a need to classify IoT devices into tiers because some devices don’t need a constant connection to the internet, while even a few milliseconds of latency could lead to catastrophic results for other devices. This year, the momentum for edge analytics and edge intelligence in IoT is also accelerating. Traditional industries, such as manufacturing, are embracing edge analytics to drive new revenue streams or significant improvements for their customers.

IT and OT step up collaboration

IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) have largely been separate domains and that’s changing in 2018. This is because IoT deployments are forcing IT teams and OT teams to work closely together to achieve success. OT is also affecting the design of IoT apps and OT teams are the ones actually leading the IoT charge this year. There are more IoT projects deployed by business operational teams than IT teams this year. Majority of them have adopted, or plan to adopt, IoT solutions by 2019.