Internet of Things World Forum, 2015: A Peek into the New World of Possibilities

IN THIS FLASH

This IDC Flash presents highlights from the Internet of Things World Forum event, held in Dubai, UAE, on December 6-8, 2015. Technology professionals, industry leaders, and Internet of Things (IoT) analysts convened at this event to witness some innovative use cases of IoT and discuss the ways to expedite the growth of the market. The event also aimed at addressing important industry topics such as digital transformation, security, and data analytics.

SITUATION OVERVIEW

The third annual Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) was hosted by Cisco on December 6-8, 2015, in Dubai, UAE. With over 2,300 attendees, the event sought to further strengthen Cisco's position and visibility in the much talked about IoT market, which brought together various industry players from across the globe. The event emphasized the importance of close alliances between value chain players such as network vendors, platform vendors, telecom operators, application providers, system integrators, and cloud and data analytics solutions providers for the holistic development of the market. It was also noted that such alliances would help players mutually reap the benefits of existing opportunities. Pushing the IoT bill, a variety of innovative industry use cases from Cisco's worldwide partners were showcased that promise enhanced productivity and efficiency gains for businesses, as well as for government and Smart City authorities.

The event stressed four underpinning factors that are considered essential for more rapid development of the market — namely partnerships, security, analytics, and fog computing.

• Partnerships and their importance in building out IoT use cases were one of the main factors identified at the event. Cisco, GE, Siemens, IBM, and all other organizations at the event reiterated how they are increasingly relying not only on newer partners, but also on entities that they would not have considered as potential partners in the past. For example, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of UAE and Dubai Police both emphasized the importance for different partners to come together to implement comprehensive IoT use cases. The results of a Hackathon, held on the sidelines of the IoTWF, also highlighted that partners do not need to be limited to large IT vendors, as IoT has democratized innovation to a scale not possible before.
• Security was recognized as one of the key inhibitors to IoT uptake among organizations in the region. Indeed, the security implications of integrating previously disparate systems are prohibitive for the numerous organizations that have the most to gain from interconnectivity. The consensus at the IoTWF was that security must be analyzed at each layer of the IoT architecture: the device or "thing" layer, the connectivity layer, and the platform itself.
• Analytics was recognized as another defining factor for the success of IoT. The event urged the need for more industry-specific analytics offerings from the vendor community and closer collaborations between cloud, systems integration, and application providers to deliver more intelligent and actionable information.
• Fog Computing was identified as a soon-to-be key element in resolving the issues of bandwidth consumption and cloud computing power. By increasing the intelligence of edge network elements, organizations will be able to make faster decisions and reduce the data loads on cloud.

The event demonstrated a variety of proof of concepts (PoCs) developed by Cisco's partners for high-growth enterprise markets. Some of the use cases on display included connected lighting, connected parking, connected public transportation, connected bus shelters, connected law enforcement, connected aviation, connected education, and smart waste management.

IoT in Smart Cities

The transformative impact of IoT is quickly becoming impossible to ignore. Putting this notion into the Dubai Smart City perspective, Anil Menon, President of Smart Connected Communities at Cisco, said that "We have passed the incubation phase, and now IoT/Smart City use cases are ready to be scaled. Cities which scale first will be the winners in an increasingly competitive environment. As host to the IoTWF, Dubai is rapidly transforming into one of the smartest digital cities in the world, connecting the unconnected and leveraging the power of intelligent networks."

To demonstrate the role of IoT in Smart Cities, the participants of IoTWF toured a greenfield Smart City project called Dubai Design District or d3. The tour provided a glimpse into a futuristic Smart City experience. d3, in partnership with its technology partner Cisco and connectivity partner du, demoed a variety of live Smart City use cases, in which the data that is collected through a variety of applications is stored in a cloud. Using analytics on top of this cloud, a command and control center can display live actionable data on a digital wall.

The first phase of the d3 project is already using IoT use cases such as connected parking, smart lighting, smart climate control systems, and smart public transport systems, as well as smart waste-management, smart utility-metering, and smart energy-monitoring technologies. d3 is designed to reduce its carbon footprint by making use of other technologies such as solar panels and electric vehicle charging points. By the time all the phases of d3 become operational (most likely by 2018), approximately 130 smart services are expected to have gone live.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

Digital transformation is expected to influence every individual, company, and country. The 3rd Platform of technology has already begun to revolutionize the IT landscape, with big data/analytics, IoT, mobility, and social media as its pillars. And the transformative impact can be seen across nearly every industry vertical IoT, in particular, is expected to boost technological development, create better living standards, and increase productivity and efficiency gains among businesses. It is also expected to address some of the world's pressing social issues such as global warming, hunger, and illiteracy, by providing new, ground-breaking solutions.

The success of city-wide Smart City implementations will depend on how well a number of systems integrators, software vendors, hardware or equipment vendors, infrastructure vendors (such as Cisco), and telecom operators are willing to collaborate. Such implementations not only require strong administrative leadership, but also warrant a deeper commitment from all participating stakeholders.

Organizations across industries will also start realizing the potential of IoT technology to cut costs and improve efficiency in the enterprise segment, especially among large businesses, especially in an environment of low oil prices and subdued economic activity. The wave of initiatives from the government will also push the public sector to keep pace with the potential of IoT. The digital transformation has the potential to drive innovation, growth, job creation, and overall employee/citizen satisfaction.

However, for this to happen, the IoT industry as a whole needs to address some outstanding technological challenges, such as a lack of common industry standards, a lack of open data frameworks, a lack of interoperable long-range and low-power connectivity networks, and a lack of industry-specific analytic applications and multi-level security firewalls. Overcoming these challenges will be essential for future growth of the IoT market.