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2014년 3월 9일 일요일

Internet of Things (IoT) presentation to CIO executives meeting

IoT and CES 2014

I presented Foresee the future of IT through the lens of CES 2014 to the one of executive session at Plaza Hotel, Seoul. The object was to share my perspective on future trends from the observation of CES 2014. It naturally progressed to the topic around IoT.

CES 2014 is famous consumer electronic show and it is somewhat meaningful because this exhibition has usually taken placed during early January so it is regarded as precursor to anticipate IT trend that will shape the future.

I kicked off by saying some noticeable solutions from the show. LG showed the washing machine that is connected to smart phone to chat, and MakerBot for 3D printer. But I highlighted the Belkin Wemo Switch.

When IFTTT meets Belkin Switch.

IFTTT stands for If This Then That. It is a service that enables users to connect different web applications (e.g., Facebook, Evernote, Weather, Dropbox, etc.) together through simple conditional statements known as "Recipes". For example, If sunset then turn on the living room ramp. This logic can be applied to web applications. But Belkin augmented this way into HW switch. The WeMo Switch can be plugged into any home outlet, which can then be controlled from an iOS or Android smartphone running the WeMo App, via home WiFi or mobile phone network. So in other words, you can control Wemo physical switch by Wemo App which can be applied IFTTT logic, so you can simply turn on or off the switch by clicking the button on the SmartPhone.

Facebook Messenger

Then I introduced Facebook Messenger. Well, interestingly enough, very next day of my presentation, FB acquired WhatsApp and paid 19B$ - 2nd biggest tech acquisition of all time. Anyway, When Facebook faced the situation that its application should be continued on the Smart Phone devices, they considered the performance the most. FB acquired group messaging company named Beluga in March 2011 and introduced Facebook Messenger in August same year. It has known that Beluga was based on MQTT communication protocol.

Why Facebook chose MQTT for its messenger?

Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) was originally developed from Hursley IBM Lab for the purpose of Telemetry communication protocol to monitor and gauge the telemetry object. Characteristics of telemetry is low power & bandwidth consumption, very limited memory, and server capability, very long lifespan etc, interestingly this is similar traits of Smart Phone. Given the consideration of HTTPs communication through polling, MQTTs heartbeat is originated from the requirements of low bandwidth and CPU usage (publish/subscribe protocol is under 5% CPU usage) in telemetry. MQTT communication protocol is conducted by publishing and subscribing. Subscribers nominate which types of information they want to receive by subscribing to specific topics. From publishers point of view, they publish in the event and forget. Rest part of communication governed by so called message broker. Message broker take care of session establishment and deliver so when the telemetry communication disconnected, heartbeat just checking the availability of counterpart, if disconnected, nothing happen, and once connection has established, broker resend the signal. So simply put, MQTT is lightweight, guaranteed service quality, based on publish/subscribe message protocol. MQTT is Open Standard base. OASIS (Advanced Open Standards for Information Society) adopted MQTT which stemmed from sub project of Eclipse Open Source Integrated Development Environment. MQTT boasts 93X more throughput than HTTP, 12 times less power consumption in the event of publishing, 120 times less power consumption in subscribing and 8 times less bandwidth workload than HTTP protocol.  MQTT boasts 50 µs app to app network speed where as HTTP takes few second level.

MQTTs Publish and Subscribe protocol

In the WebSphere MQ Publish/Subscribe model the only thing which connects publishing and subscribing applications is the topic or subject which the publisher associates with his information. Publishers and subscribers need only agree on the topic to become connected to one another. Each different piece of information has its own topic associated with it. Subscribers nominate which types of information they want to receive by subscribing to specific topics.
Publishers of information are unaware of subscribers to the extent that they may publish information even if there are no subscribing applications requiring it. Publishing and subscribing are completely dynamic processes. New subscribers and new publishers can be added to the system without disruption.
With respect to a given topic, or piece of information, all possible combinations of publishers/subscribers are possible, that is; information about each topic may be provided by a single or multiple publishing applications the information may be received and processed by one or more subscribing applications.
The number of publishers and subscribers connected by a single topic depends upon the type of information which is flowing between them. As we will see later, WebSphere MQ supports both state and event based information, or topics.

Substantial numbers of use cases are possible in IoT

I shared connected car example as first popular Internet of Things use case. By connecting the Infotainment, Telemetics and Smart Phone, car owner unlock the car and find car when he/she lost, and when vibration in left front detected, sends data to car company who schedules appointment with dealer and sends invite.  Another use case is, condition based maintenance. Think about the petroleum pipeline network such as 17,000 km pipeline network.., how can we monitor the breaches or abnormal situations? By using 30,000 pieces low power, low bandwidth battery based M2M sensors in storage, temperature, pressure, refineries, spill location and pumps, operation center can detect, predict and execute based on condition based maintenance.

M2M Smart City demo in Barcelona Mobile World Congress.

Impressive demo was connected car demo in MWC this year. Solution that were comprised of IBM Infosphere Stream (SW that can process the unstructured stream data almost real-time), worklight and m2m message appliance MessageSight, underscored the importance of real-time monitor and control of road traffic and emergency control.  If I make long story to short, we could control the messages among the vehicle running in the Barcelona road from the control center. For example, demo displayed the automobiles in Barcelona city and lets suppose one hydrant has broken and certain road was flooded. In this case, control center can define the zone and published alarm signal to specific zone, then the cars who have equipped with MQTT agent could subscribe that message and send messages to the adjacent cars, so ultimately all the moving cars in the zone could sense this alarm. And one car damaged and this would publish the fatal signal so emergence rescue team has arrived within short period of time.

Implication: OK, then what all of these imply to us?

Report articulates that 18B$ IoT market is estimated by 2020 and 30B IoT devices in 2015. OK good, then what this IoT proliferation to be meant to all of us?  

Proliferation of IoT devices and huge amount of market opportunity around IoT is somewhat threats and at the time, opportunities to us. We may think about the two approaches; How and What.

From the point of how, it is calling for new operation model. Firstly, it requires new capability.. for example, capability to take care of the consistent relationship around every touch points in omni-channels and deliver enhanced digital customer experiences. Second, capability across total organization is needed to expand among different channels and processes, and at the same time, it is also true to optimize every elements capabilities. Third, it requires also integrate every element of value deliveries and optimize total organization centered on client touch points and effectiveness/efficiency point of view.

From the point of what, it is calling for new customer experience which could be essentially achieved through enhanced digital contents, for example, firstly, enhance customer experience improvements through digital contents of product & services, information, insights and relationship that could be captured across omni-channel touch points. Second, expand physical product and services to digital contents for new revenue growth. Third, redefine the system towards customer value oriented digital front office system so ultimately deliver customers differentiated unique value through digital channels.

Epilogue

Proliferation of IoT devices and consequent abundant data information lead us to imply the causality of businesses. This internet of things proliferation itself uncover the different control equations, it means we are literally exposed by exploded data information surrounded us and it requires new operation model which embraces consolidated view of information collected from every touch points of our clients relationship. Data is data but firm need to reorient its approaches more customer value orientation. If we are able to figure out the individual clients profile and persona for example, we may able to more proactively offer the value proposition, or perhaps predict the next best action based on our understanding of 360 degree clients profile which have acquired from every touch points of engagements.


So it naturally leads us to conclude that understanding the customer is important, particularly true under exploding information era. Customer journey on product and services consumption could be also collected from proliferated M2M or IoT information. It means if we do the right job in maintaining customer lifetime value through digital front office transformation, it promises customers lifetime value to us. Because customer advocacy and intimacy stems from experience lock-in could be a critical weapon to win in the market place. 

**The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

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