IoT platforms: How they work and how to choose one

The difficulty and challenges of managing a growing IoT environment as organizations move from small-scale pilots to full-fledged deployments, where hundreds and even thousands of endpoint devices, the data they generate, the analyses of that data and integration with the cloud as well as other systems all must be managed and maintained.

IoT engineers and developers could build their own systems to do that work, just as early adopters of IoT did, or they could use APIs to manage the devices as well as extract, direct and analyze the data generated “But that’s very complex,” said Luke Durcan, director of EcoStruxure at Schneider Electric. Homegrown solutions are expensive to create and maintain and often fail to offer key capabilities such as security. That’s where IoT platforms step in, he said.

These platforms provide the various capabilities needed to manage an IoT ecosystem at scale, freeing developers from having to build management functionality themselves. Instead, they can focus on creating the logic and any other unique code required for their organizational needs.

“[An IoT platform] is necessary as you start scaling, because as you start connecting more, you have to invest in an ongoing way to manage these assets. You have to figure out what connections you need, how to scale the platform, whether it’s wireless or wireline. You have to think about updating these connected assets and troubleshooting,” said Michele Pelino, a principal analyst at Forrester Research and a member of the firm’s infrastructure and operations research team. “That complexity is why you need a [platform].”