Industrial process control engineers may recall the “early days” when a single computer cost upwards of a million dollars and had less computing power than a smart phone, and sensors were mechanical devices costing thousands of dollars and requiring constant calibration. Today, many of these sensors have been replaced by semiconductors with digital outputs costing under $100. Lee Stogner, president of the Vincula Group and member of the IEEE Internet of Things Initiative, calls today’s technology a “perfect storm in the Internet of Things” in an IEEE Xplore article.
Getting this “perfect storm” under control will be an absolute necessity if users are going to benefit from rapidly growing technology. “Potential migration toward an Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT] raises numerous questions regarding suitable architectural frameworks or reference architectures for use in these emerging ecosystems,” says Chantal Polsonetti, ARC Advisory Group vice president, advisory services. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and the European IoT-A (Internet of Things-Architecture), among others, have been busy developing architectural frameworks that define relationships between IoT domains and devices, as well as appropriate security schemes.