Internet of Things (IoT): Top Ten Technologies Most Impacting IoT in the Next Two Years

Gartner says that over the next two years that the following technologies will have the broadest impact on the Internet of Things (IoT):

Security – Beyond issues like data security and encryption and secure transmissions, IoT will introduce security issues like theft and tampering, the impersonation of “things”, and denial-of-sleep attacks designed to drain the batteries of devices.

Analytics – Analytics will be applied to data collected from devices to understand things like customer behavior, to improve products and to provide input for decision making.

Device Management – Devices, especially those of high value or long-lived, will need to be monitored for proper functioning, physically managed, and updated with new software.

Low Power, Short-Range IoT Networks – Low power networks are expected to dominate IoT for the next ten years.

Low Power, Wide-Area Networks – Long-term, IoT networks will be able to increase data transmission rates, size of area covered, and battery life of equipment.

Processors – Devices processors need to be able to better support security and encryption, decrease their power consumption, and to have firmware that can be updated.

Operating Systems – Operating systems, like Windows and Linux have huge footprints and won’t work well on cheap small devices.  New operating systems designed specifically for IoT are being developed.

Event Stream Processing – Some IoT applications generate tens of thousands of events and data points per second.  Analysis of huge amounts of real-time data will require the creation of distributed stream computing platforms (DSCPs).

Platforms – IoT infrastructure will become more packaged as platforms.

Standards and Ecosystems – Increasingly it will become necessary for IoT devices to be able to bother interoperate and  intercommunicate.  Standards will help enable this.

Nick Jones, vice president, Gartner, said that “the IoT demands an extensive range of new technologies and skills that many organizations have yet to master.  A recurring theme in the IoT space is the immaturity of technologies and services and of the vendors providing them. Architecting for this immaturity and managing the risk it creates will be a key challenge for organizations exploiting the IoT. In many technology areas, lack of skills will also pose significant challenges…  Experienced IoT security specialists are scarce, and security solutions are currently fragmented and involve multiple vendors.  New threats will emerge through 2021 as hackers find new ways to attack IoT devices and protocols, so long-lived ‘things’ may need updatable hardware and software to adapt during their life span.”