Internet of Things Blog Post

I wrote this blog post for a client who asked for 250+ words on the Internet of Things. He never told me where he posted it... which is annoying since it left me without a cool portfolio piece. Writing is fun for the sake of writing, though, right? 
Anyway, here it is:

While the Internet of Things (IoT) may sound like slang or an informal description of cyber-connections, the IoT is actually a formal, complex network of embedded computing devices. These devices cohabit the existing Internet infrastructure and are each identifiable under a unique IP address. The quality that makes the IoT different from the Internet as we know it is that systems within the IoT often don't require much, if any, human interaction after their initial implementation.

What can computers do without the help of humans, though? In fact, while computers are often thought to have a keyboard and a mouse, the majority of computers in the world are built into hardware to serve a purpose in their own environment. These built-in computers, known as embedded systems, include devices such as heart-rate monitors, anti-lock braking systems and thermostats. When these systems are wirelessly linked to other machines, they then become the “things” in the Internet of Things.

The unique machine-to-machine (M2M) quality of the IoT is ironically its biggest downfall though. Since there is less human interaction with M2M systems, there is more work to be done by machines; Storing massive quantities of data and effectively managing requests in real-time as opposed to a normal computer's clock time. Since the IoT is expanding so rapidly, the main objective of businesses supplying the technology is to create enough cloud storage space for all of the information to be processed and stored quickly.

Many businesses are compensating for the massive overload of data by implementing smaller data centers for initial processing so that the consumer will not have to wait for any larger, remote processes. Oftentimes, data can be stored within a device for instantaneous processes, too. It is absolutely crucial that businesses find a way to compensate for huge amounts of data before overloading consumers with faulty embedded systems.

While many believe that the IT systems of the past twenty years will not be able to handle the emergence of the IoT, it is up to the IT industry to come up with lucrative ways to increase cloud computing, storage and big-data analysis without losing automation or efficiency.