There are literally trillions of reasons for enterprise media to take the lead in preparing for an Internet of Things (IoT)-driven world. IoT’s global economic impact is expected to reach $11T by 2025. Industrial IoT (IIoT), smart cities, and retail will see the largest shares of those dollars, but media and entertainment (M&E) stand to gain significantly as well.
Imagine the possibilities
The most important question to answer in regards to IoT relevance is, “Why?”—what’s in it for the enterprise?”
Internet of Things sensors can serve as eyes and ears for enhancement of the data that M&E companies rely on already. Who, what, where, when, and how long are answered with greater effectiveness as connected devices communicate with sensors in connected environments. Additionally, IoT sensors have the capacity to provide emotional and other contextual data that isn’t found from ratings sheets, search engine analytics, or viewing history.
IoT applications are keys to unlocking engagement access beyond the media and entertainment realm such as connected vehicles and smart digital out-of-home (DOOH). Proximity sensors also allow for precision advertising (proximity/custom offer delivery) and personalized experiences—like connected event environments as an example. Camera and machine optical sensors empower facial recognition (mood when viewing or engaging) and automatic personal authentication login on mobile, wearables, or public kiosks.
The next question to answer is, “How” to become IoT-ready. Let’s look at foundational challenges and the solutions associated with the IoT explosion already in progress.
Overcoming barriers
Consolidating, managing, and leveraging traditional big data is challenging enough for enterprise media. Now there are more connected devices on the planet than there are people, each generating independent data in disparate ways. IoT data is unstructured, intermittent, and highly diverse in bidirectionality, frequency, and function.
Many enterprises are not currently equipped to handle the volume, types, and sources of data generated by The Internet of Things—but becoming IoT-ready is achievable for the committed M&E enterprise. In fact, it’ll soon become a business imperative.
Gaining the competitive edge
The Internet of Things is a primary contributor to the phenomenon of data gravity—a term describing the attraction between data and applications. As datasets grow larger, they become harder to move until ultimately the data remains fixed in its remote location. Applications and processing power are then drawn to where the data resides (i.e. gravity).
This is important to understand because data gravity addresses the greatest current challenge with IoT adoption—latency. The value of the Internet of Things is based on perpetual engagement, listening, and appropriate response. The challenge is the farther away from the source the IoT data is generated, the longer it takes to make the journey for a timely delivery of an appropriate response/result.
The solution to more quickly processing remotely generated data is to increase interconnection with proximate devices on the edge that deliver higher bandwidth with lower latency. This drive to the edge precipitates platform consolidation as it will become increasingly unacceptable to run IoT services only on the core network.
Supporting both edge and core processing on a single platform requires a proven and stable provider that can already demonstrate a history of moving towards this hybrid strategy. Currently, IoT cloud leaders include AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Optimal IoT event processing and device management requires placing firmware and updates in digital edge nodes. Positioning IoT analytical capabilities at the edge resolves device complexity, bandwidth, and latency issues. This strategy also gives companies freedom to choose which networks and providers to partner with, as well as multi-destination control.
Through these partnerships, data exchange addresses IoT data delay by providing access to different data sources (and types) in a fast and efficient manner. All of which comprises an Internet of Agents (IOA) strategy for data collection and aggregation with local event processing.
Agents of change
Agent programs run based on user-set parameters to search all or part of the internet, gather relevant information, and provide this information to the individual on a periodic or on demand basis. An IOA strategy optimizes data steaming flows as well as edge analytics.
Enterprise companies will enjoy the following benefits from IOA deployment:
- Scalability to billions of devices at each global location
- Inspection, validation, and authentication before pre-processing
- No need to discard data
- Greatest efficiency and lowest latency bandwidth
- Cloud provides all required processing speed
Media and entertainment companies must place interconnection at the edge where most content originates and is distributed—and where individuals want to access it. The very reasons for historical IoT challenges (lack of speed and scalability, etc.) can be solved via IOA and localized event processing. If media and entertainment companies want to position themselves for future proximate media demands, then the race for IoT readiness starts now.
SoftServe is an award-winning partner with leading IoT cloud solution providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Our global team of IoT and M&E specialists empower our clients to consolidate and manage the big data that the Internet of Things creates. Read more about IoT’s potential in M&E in our latest whitepaper, “The Internet of Media Things”.
