Describe Internet of Things (IoT) Technologies

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05Welcome to describe internet of things or IoT technologies,

0:08and moreover, welcome to the CWISA course.

0:12In this course, we're going to be exploring

0:14pretty much everything that revolves around this concept

0:17of internet of things.

0:18IoT is a growing trend.

0:20It's been a growing trend for the better part of a decade

0:22at this point.

0:23But the reality is that a lot of IoT organizations

0:26are struggling to catch up to needs that IoT

0:29brings to the table.

0:30There are a lot of organizations out there that are adopting IoT

0:34and really necessitates this question

0:36to begin with which is, what exactly is

0:39the internet of things?

0:40Because we've had the internet of things

0:43in a sense for a very long time.

0:44I mean, I've had laptops, I've had now phones,

0:47smartphones that can connect to the internet.

0:49But there is a difference between those devices,

0:52which are intended for me, a user, to be able to fire up.

0:56For example, here's my phone, I can pull out my phone

0:58and I can use my phone.

1:00This is a human type of device.

1:02A human interfacing type of device.

1:04Meanwhile, though, we've got a lot of devices

1:06that, yeah, at the end of the day,

1:09they're there for our benefit in some fashion,

1:11but they are not actively communicating to a user.

1:14For example, I've got a control deck right here.

1:16I can hit this button and maybe that button

1:19and bring on some additional lights in my studio.

1:22And so that's great that these light bulbs are

1:25connected to my other device.

1:26And, yes, again, I have to push a button to make it happen.

1:29But the reality is that that is a network connected

1:32light bulb that is enabling me in my life in some way to be

1:36a little bit more automated.

1:37I've got quite a few things around my house

1:39that would be maybe considered smart or connected devices.

1:43I have a coffee maker.

1:44I just made some coffee.

1:45And this coffee came out of a smart coffee maker,

1:48meaning that it's internet enabled.

1:50I can get in there, I can configure my drink exactly how

1:53I want it using an app.

1:55It's so connected that if it runs out of coffee beans,

1:58it can automatically order more coffee beans for me,

2:00in that way, I don't have to keep a supply on hand.

2:02And so this is the level of intelligence

2:04that these devices are introducing.

2:06I've got a garage door outside that

2:07will close if it's still open at 10 o'clock

2:10at night because chances are I forgot to close it.

2:12And then we've got other things--

2:14I've got a bathroom scale I can step on

2:16and it will record my weight, and so on and so forth.

2:19So we've got this world of connected devices

2:21that are enabling things maybe even from a home automation

2:24perspective.

2:25But then, the question is, how exactly does it

2:27apply to our business world?

2:29And once we establish the business use

2:31case for some of these types of devices,

2:33especially looking at things like RFID tracking now,

2:36we can look at inventory, we can really

2:39apply this to a little bit more of a business focus.

2:41Well, at that point, what is the load now on our IT staff?

2:44Because we need to understand how exactly all these devices

2:47are communicating, maybe they're communicating via Wi--Fi,

2:50but maybe they're not communicating via Wi-Fi.

2:52And there's a lot of reasons why we might not

2:54want our IoT devices to communicate via Wi-Fi.

2:58And so in this skill, we're going

2:59to be focusing in on exactly what IoT is going to be--

3:04first of all, define IoT but then,

3:06what are some of the implications to IoT?

3:09What are some of the benefits?

3:10What are some of the challenges?

3:11And so, we're going to be unpacking it

3:13from that perspective.

3:14But again, when we zoom out and look at this entire course,

3:17the course is really designed to number one,

3:20address the blueprint of the CWISA.

3:22But number two, focus in on what the CWISA is all about, which

3:26is understanding from a wireless perspective, the types

3:29of things that we as an IT organization

3:32maybe need to think about and have skills with in order

3:35to properly deploy IoT.

3:37So with that, let's go ahead and dive

3:38into this world of the internet of things.

3:40I'll see you in the next video.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05Well, if we're going to jump into a course about Internet

0:07of Things types of devices, then we

0:09need to start with a very basic question, which

0:11is, what in the world is the Internet of Things

0:14or what we are more commonly going to refer to as IoT?

0:18Well, let's take a look.

0:19At this point, wireless networking

0:21has been around for decades.

0:23In fact, Wi-Fi itself came out in the late 1990s.

0:26And so what we have here is an enormous convenience

0:29for the many devices that are in our lives.

0:32And this convenience actually led to the creation

0:34of many other devices.

0:36And so when we think about what we, as humans, use

0:38from a wireless perspective, we often

0:41think about things like our laptops and our phones,

0:44for example.

0:45These are very common devices that we're

0:46going to use that involve wireless networking.

0:49But this naturally extends into other worlds.

0:51We can talk about tablets, for example.

0:54We can talk about maybe even game controllers or gaming

0:57systems.

0:58And so we've got all kinds of wireless peripherals.

1:00And the idea with all of these is

1:02that a human being is actively using them

1:04when they are in use.

1:06But what we've started to really see, especially

1:08over the last decade, is the creation of many wireless

1:10devices that, when they're in use,

1:13they are not necessarily being used by humans.

1:16This is the world of the Internet of Things, or IoT.

1:20The Internet of Things is really more of a category.

1:23It's maybe what we'd call an umbrella term,

1:25as there are a lot of different types of devices

1:27that fall under this category.

1:29And so when we think about Internet of Things,

1:31oftentimes we'll see people refer

1:33to maybe connected devices.

1:35We'll see a lot of people refer to smart devices.

1:39And again, we mentioned a lot of home automation

1:41types of devices often refer to themselves

1:43as smart devices and such.

1:45And so what we find is that we've just

1:46got a bunch of devices, many of which connect wirelessly,

1:49and they're connecting out to the internet

1:51and providing some value to us.

1:52And so at that point, we might ask the question--

1:54I mean, we've had our laptops and we've

1:56had our phones for a long time.

1:58I mean, these devices are connected to the internet.

2:00So couldn't we just refer to this

2:02as a collection of things connected to the internet?

2:05Couldn't we call our laptops and our phones

2:07an Internet of Things?

2:08And the answer is no.

2:09We cannot refer to it this way because, once again,

2:12these devices are being accessed by users,

2:15or they really don't provide much value on their own.

2:18IoT devices are designed to operate independent

2:21of human interaction.

2:23Think about a couple of the examples

2:24I gave in the introduction.

2:26For example, I mentioned my coffeemaker.

2:28I've got this coffeemaker, and it

2:30is called a smart coffeemaker.

2:32And the reason for that is because of a few things.

2:35First of all, it's able to be connected to.

2:38So I can connect to it via my smartphone.

2:41I can program it to do things.

2:43I can make sure that it fills a cup of coffee on a timer,

2:47for example.

2:47I could actually set it to brew coffee as soon as I wake up,

2:50before I even step into the kitchen.

2:52But it's also able to synchronize data to my phone.

2:55So I can see the status of the coffeemaker.

2:58There have been a couple of times

2:59where the coffeemaker is doing something.

3:01I'm not exactly sure what it's doing.

3:02So I fire up the app, and it tells me

3:04it's in a cleaning cycle, for example.

3:06And then beyond that, it's able to actually order products

3:09for me on my behalf.

3:11As long as I give it permission to do so,

3:13when it notices that my coffee beans are low,

3:16it's going to place an order.

3:17And for that matter, if it's about ready for a cleaning

3:20cycle, it can order cleaning products.

3:22I mean, it's absolutely incredible

3:24just how well-connected this coffeemaker is.

3:26Now, we'll notice that some of this,

3:27like synchronizing to my phone and, for that matter,

3:31setting a timer, these are done by me, as the human.

3:34However, we also see that it's operating

3:37independent of any kind of human interaction in this.

3:40So here's the question.

3:41If it's not communicating with a person, then

3:43what is it connecting to?

3:45Well, this coffeemaker is connecting to another machine.

3:49When we say another machine, I don't necessarily

3:51mean another machine in my house.

3:53I mean that it's connecting to some central server

3:55out on the internet, or potentially, it's

3:58connecting directly to my phone, in this case, where

4:00it's pushing data without my intervention.

4:03And so this type of traffic is what

4:04we call machine-to-machine.

4:06It's often abbreviated as M2M, like this.

4:09Machine-to-machine traffic means that it

4:11is truly communicating with another device,

4:13once again, independent of me getting in there

4:16and forcing it to communicate to another device.

4:19We can look at another example.

4:20In the intro video, I demonstrated

4:22what my lights look like.

4:23I can push a button on my Control Panel.

4:26And yes, this did require me to push a button.

4:28So as the user, I would have to insight some sort of trigger.

4:31And so maybe the trigger is me pushing a button.

4:33Maybe it's me setting an alarm or some sort of timer.

4:35But either way, once triggered, this device

4:38is going to reach out to the light bulb.

4:41And it's going to tell it exactly how it's

4:42supposed to behave.

4:44And so ultimately, what we find is

4:45that we have, once again, machine-to-machine traffic

4:48operating in this case.

4:50And so this is why we point to this light bulb

4:52and say that this is part of our Internet of Things.

4:55And so specifically, this would be

4:56referred to as an IoT device.

4:59Now, notice our terminology.

5:00We're calling this an IoT device.

5:02We are not referring to the light bulb as an IoT.

5:06When we're talking about the Internet of Things,

5:08that would be the larger network, the global set

5:11of devices that are all connecting to one another

5:13via this machine-to-machine traffic.

5:16And so this is just one part of that network.

5:18And so we're going to refer to this as a single device

5:21or, once again, an IoT device.

5:23So as we can imagine, there are a lot

5:25of benefits that are brought to the table

5:27by the Internet of Things.

5:28And so as we think about a few of these,

5:30and this would not be an exhaustive list, but just

5:33off the top of our heads, and we think about some

5:35of these benefits, first and foremost,

5:37we're going to see that there's a lot of automation that

5:39gets built into our lives based on IoT.

5:42When we have a lot of machines that are out there,

5:45like these light bulbs that can interface with another device,

5:48like a Control Panel, for example, in this case,

5:51we can set a whole lot of automation.

5:53When I think about the fact that my coffeemaker can

5:56automatically order a product for me,

5:58I don't have to think about it, well, that's incredible.

6:00It's one less thing I have to worry about in my life,

6:03and that's thanks to this IoT coffeemaker.

6:05IoT can also provide some deep insights.

6:08IoT conversations can often revolve around the concept

6:11of wearable technology.

6:13And so I might wear things that are health-driven.

6:16So I've got devices that are telling me

6:18about how well I eat, how well I sleep, how well I exercise,

6:23all of these things.

6:24This can all be connected and automatically provided to me.

6:27And it's going to provide me with some good, deep insights

6:30into my health and ideally how I can improve my health.

6:33Often tied to automation and deep insights

6:36would be the idea that IoT is going to ultimately save me

6:39some amount of time.

6:41And ideally, in some ways, it'll save me money.

6:44And this is a very important driver from a business

6:47perspective because in the business world,

6:48we care about things a little bit more revenue-driven

6:53and cost-driven than we care about

6:55whether it's the greatest and shiniest new technology.

6:58And so this is going to be huge from a business perspective.

7:02But from a home residential perspective,

7:04it might not make financial sense.

7:06But if it improves my lifestyle, my happiness, or the amount

7:09of time free time that I have potentially,

7:11then maybe I'd be more willing to spend some money on that.

7:15And so we especially think about home automation in this regard.

7:18Now, that said, there are definitely

7:19going to be some challenges that are introduced, especially

7:22from an IT perspective, when we're talking about IoT.

7:26First and foremost, when we talk about IoT from a business

7:29perspective, we are generally talking

7:30about a very high density of devices.

7:34We might be talking about RFID trackers.

7:36We might be talking about sensors

7:38that are going to be responding to certain things.

7:40And oftentimes, we have a lot of these.

7:42And so this is going to introduce

7:44the concept of management.

7:46How am I going to manage all of these devices?

7:48How am I going to connect them to my network

7:50and get them integrated with the system?

7:52And we're going to need some tools in IT in order

7:54to help us deal with this.

7:56Second of all, we need to worry about the networking

7:58element of IoT.

8:00We need to ask the question, how are

8:01these devices all connecting to one another

8:03via some kind of network?

8:05Now, our initial reaction is probably

8:07going to be, well, we've got this great Wi-Fi connectivity

8:10and technology.

8:11Let's go ahead and take advantage of it.

8:12But is Wi-Fi really the best fit for IoT?

8:16And oftentimes, we are going to find

8:17that Wi-Fi doesn't deliver everything we need from an IoT

8:20perspective.

8:21And we'll see exactly why here coming up within the skill.

8:24Now, a third one, and this is a major one for any organization,

8:28it is security.

8:29We are now talking about having potentially connected fridges

8:33in our environment.

8:34And so if I connect a smart fridge into the kitchen

8:38area or the break room, for example,

8:40and now this fridge has a vulnerability,

8:43I mean, if there are hackers out there

8:45and they're able to compromise the fridge,

8:47can they then access our local area network?

8:50And from there, can they access some critical resources,

8:53maybe our servers in the data center and things like that?

8:56I mean, does the smart device-- do the IoT devices

8:58that we deploy, whether it's a fridge or, again,

9:00a sensor or potentially RFID trackers, I mean,

9:03can these devices present a security and a vulnerability

9:07risk that we are not prepared to take?

9:09And so as with all things, there are going to be pros and cons,

9:12and we just need to make sure that we understand

9:14all of that upfront before we go investing into an IoT solution.

9:17So we covered a lot of information here.

9:20And so at the end of those videos,

9:21I always like to do a quick review of some

9:24of the key points that we should, at a minimum,

9:26be taking away if we remember nothing

9:28else from the conversation.

9:29So at the very start of this, we defined IoT.

9:32And we said that the IoT, the Internet of Things,

9:34is a collection of devices that those devices are communicating

9:38without human interaction.

9:40And so again, we think about laptops and phones and things

9:43like that.

9:44These are designed to be used by a human.

9:46And so when we think about some of the other devices

9:50we talked about, those are more geared

9:53towards operating without direct human interaction.

9:56Yes, we can trigger them to behave in a certain way,

9:58and that's the whole point, that they're providing value

10:00to us as humans, but they are communicating

10:03among other machines.

10:04And so when we look at the benefits of IoT,

10:07these devices can bring us all kinds of neat features.

10:10And so we've got the ability to introduce automation,

10:13for example.

10:13We said they can provide some deep data insights.

10:16So think about health tracking, for example.

10:18We can do location tracking services.

10:20We can track devices as they go around our area.

10:23And so yeah, we've got some residential applications

10:25for this, but we're going to find

10:26that there's a lot of business applications as well.

10:28Now, it does introduce a whole lot of challenges, as we saw.

10:31We've got to worry about management.

10:32We have to worry about networking.

10:34And we have to worry about security.

10:35And so again, these aren't meant to be

10:37exhaustive lists of the pros and cons,

10:39but it certainly at least gets the conversation started around

10:42why we would go the route of deploying IoT solutions

10:46but ultimately also making sure we understand that if we deploy

10:49IoT, then we are going to be introducing some challenges,

10:52which ultimately, a lot of what we're here to talk about

10:54is how we end up dealing with those IoT challenges

10:57and successfully deploy IoT solutions

10:59into our environments.

11:00I hope this has been informative for you,

11:02and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05I tell you what, it's pretty hard

0:07to go to the electronic store without seeing

0:09all kinds of devices being advertised

0:11as smart this, smart that.

0:13And so we see that there are some smart devices out there,

0:16but are they actually smart devices?

0:18Because we need to differentiate between smart devices

0:21and connected devices.

0:23Both of which are IoT devices, but ultimately, they

0:26can mean very different things.

0:27So this is going to be a little bit of a definition of terms

0:29type of video, but we do need to understand the difference

0:32between these two device types.

0:33Any time we are talking about IoT devices,

0:36this is typically language that we're

0:38going to see used in the corporate world.

0:40We're not necessarily going to see

0:42IoT used in the residential world, instead,

0:45we're going to see terms like smart and connected devices.

0:48Any time I mentioned going to the store,

0:51it seems like I flooded with the opportunity

0:53to buy some of these smart and connected devices.

0:56And that's because they're aimed at more

0:58residential applications.

1:00And so we think about things like home automation.

1:03If I want to automate my home maybe

1:06by deploying light bulbs into my house,

1:07I can automatically turn on and off, well,

1:10that would be labeled under home automation

1:12and that would be referred to as smart lighting.

1:14So, are all of these terms the same thing?

1:17Well, not really.

1:18IoT is really the larger category

1:20that contains both smart devices and connected devices

1:24all within itself.

1:26And so, with IoT, we're talking about the global entity that

1:28is the networking of all of these different devices

1:31regardless of the device type that's

1:33being networked together.

1:34Meanwhile, we've got all kinds of different types of devices.

1:37For example, we do have smart and connected devices,

1:40but these are two different types of devices.

1:43So let's talk about these two terms.

1:44Let's start with the idea of the connected device.

1:47Now, this term isn't used often enough.

1:50Honestly, it should be used way more often

1:52because a lot of the devices that are called smart devices

1:55would more accurately be described as connected devices.

1:58A connected device is focused on the sending and receiving

2:02of data.

2:02They might be collecting data and sending it

2:04out to some repository, or they might

2:07be a device like my light bulb that receives a signal

2:10and it's going to do something with it as a result.

2:12And what's key here is that with their focus

2:15of sending and receiving data, they

2:16are not focused on the concept of making decisions.

2:20So what are some examples of this?

2:22Well, once again, I just mentioned my lights.

2:24Yeah, I've got this control panel.

2:26I can touch the control panel, and it

2:28will communicate via machine to machine traffic

2:30to tell my light bulb to come on,

2:33or I can turn it off for that matter.

2:35And this is great other than did the light bulb make

2:37the decision to turn on or did it make the decision to turn

2:40off and the answer is no.

2:42The light bulb didn't make that decision.

2:44I as the user made that decision in some fashion.

2:47Now same thing with my garage door,

2:49I've got this smart garage door opener.

2:51And I as the user, I don't necessarily trigger it.

2:54I mean, I can from my phone app, for example, I

2:57could use the app and I could trigger my garage door

2:59to go up or down.

3:00But more to the point, I actually set an alarm

3:03for 10 o'clock at night.

3:05And so at 10 o'clock PM, my garage door

3:08is going to see that, hey, I'm open,

3:10it's 10:00 o'clock, which is what I was configured for,

3:13and it's going to tell the garage door

3:15to close at that point.

3:17But once again, did the garage door

3:20opener, did it make the decision in order to do that?

3:23And we could argue it made the decision because it

3:25saw that it was 10 o'clock and it decided to close the door,

3:28but it didn't really make a decision

3:30based on the current data that it's reading.

3:33Ultimately, it was triggered by my alarm that I as the user

3:36created.

3:37So, yes, these devices are IoT devices,

3:40they are connected devices, but I wouldn't call them

3:42smart devices.

3:43And the reason is right here.

3:45They are not making any decisions,

3:47but rather they're reacting to some kind of trigger

3:49that we have configured beforehand.

3:51Now, is there value in this type of device?

3:53Absolutely.

3:54I mean, I absolutely love my lights.

3:56I absolutely love my garage door.

3:58But these are not smart devices, at least, not by the definition

4:01that we are putting out there.

4:03So when we turn our attention to our smart devices

4:06and what the smart devices are delivering as we might imagine,

4:09this has to do with the decision-making process.

4:12We want our devices that really are truly smart devices

4:16to be able to make decisions based on what they're seeing

4:19and what they're sensing.

4:21And so, let's talk about my coffee maker one more time,

4:23I guess I really like this thing.

4:25But this coffee maker as we mentioned, has a sensor in it.

4:28And this sensor can do one of two things.

4:31It could alert me to the fact that, hey, we're

4:34out of coffee and so maybe that would

4:37make this a connected device because it senses something

4:40it triggers and it does something

4:42that I want it to do for me.

4:43However, the more interesting thing about it

4:46is that it can actually make the decision

4:48to order more coffee beans based on what

4:51the sensor is telling it.

4:52This is a decision.

4:55It is not something that has been pre-programmed.

4:57I didn't say that every five days I

5:00want you to order more coffee for me.

5:01I mean, certainly that would also

5:03be useful, but potentially not as useful

5:05as I'm either probably going to order too much or not enough

5:07coffee at that point.

5:08Instead, it's going to be very precise with the coffee making

5:11because I'm going to find that coffee shows up on my doorstep

5:14and turn around and realize that the coffee maker has started

5:17to get empty.

5:18And so this is a very important distinction

5:20between what we consider to be connectivity which

5:23would be more of this alert or trigger-based mechanism

5:25versus making decisions based on data.

5:28And ultimately, based on input that it's

5:30getting from a device like a sensor or an RFID tag

5:33and those kinds of things.

5:35Now, naturally, this coffee maker

5:36has some connected types of behaviors as well.

5:39For example, it can also brew coffee

5:41based on an alarm in the same way my garage door operates

5:44on an alarm.

5:45But this isn't really a decision again,

5:47it's behaving in a pre-programmed way,

5:49and so I would say that this over here, this

5:52is the smart behavior and then this alarm concept,

5:55this would be connected behavior.

5:57Now if my coffee maker was brewing coffee in response

6:00to my caffeine level, maybe I have some sort of health device

6:05that I'm wearing.

6:06A wearable health tech.

6:07And it's telling my coffee maker that, hey, caffeine

6:10is low in my bloodstream, and therefore, it's

6:13time to brew some coffee for me.

6:15Now that would be smart behavior.

6:17And I don't know that that'll ever happen, probably

6:20at one point, it will.

6:21There'll be some gimmicky coffee maker out there

6:23that ties into our health system that we've got

6:26going on with our IoT devices.

6:28But ultimately, as of today, this

6:30is more just a hypothetical.

6:32But this would be smart behavior as well because it's

6:34sensing things using sensors and then

6:37it's making a decision on when to do things.

6:39So let's leave my coffee maker alone for a minute

6:41and let's think of some other examples of this.

6:44And we can go to a lot of different systems

6:46that are built around sensors.

6:48Now, the interesting thing here is that the sensors themselves,

6:51these are usually going to be connected devices.

6:54They're not making any decisions,

6:55they're just doing the sending and receiving of data

6:58that we mentioned and so it's collecting information

7:00and sending it back to some kind of centralized system.

7:02But, that connectivity maybe does go to a system

7:06and then it makes decisions.

7:08For example, what if this was a moisture sensor

7:11and so we've got these sensors that are maybe in a greenhouse

7:15or out in a farm field.

7:16And so when moisture is low, it's

7:18going to trigger and realize that, hey, it's time

7:20to do something here.

7:21And so I'm going to trigger the watering

7:23system to do something.

7:25Now, the system in place maybe it involves a lot of sensors

7:29and so we've got this centralized system,

7:31but we see the machine to machine behavior right here.

7:34This doesn't involve a human.

7:36If it was alerting me and saying,

7:37hey, you should water the plants,

7:39then I could go to the watering system

7:41and tell the watering system to trigger things as well.

7:44But that would be more of a connected type of device

7:48where in this case, it is using machine to machine traffic

7:51in order to bypass bothering a human being

7:53and simply do exactly what we want

7:55it to do which is to make the decision to water

7:58our plants on our behalf.

7:59And so, do we see a little bit of gray area

8:01between our connected devices and smart devices?

8:04Absolutely.

8:05Because we could argue that some of these behaviors on the right

8:08are trigger-based.

8:08We could argue that some of the behaviors on the left

8:11are kind of making decisions.

8:13And so, yeah, we might find that the definition of this

8:16could be nebulous or maybe a little bit fuzzy.

8:18And so what we need to do is just understand.

8:20Generally speaking, at the heart of this

8:23is there a decision-making process happening

8:26independent of human beings.

8:27If a device really just goes out and tells a human that, hey,

8:31it's time to do something and the human has to go do it.

8:34Well, that would be more of a connected device.

8:36So, again, I think of my light bulbs where I as the human

8:39am really telling the light bulb what

8:41to do even though I'm relying on a connected system in order

8:44to make it happen.

8:46But if I were to evolve my lights

8:48and now my lights have sensors, and my sensors are detecting

8:52whether there's a human being in the room or not

8:54and it automatically turns the lights off

8:57if there's nobody in there, well, at this point,

8:59it sort of evolves into smart lighting.

9:01And so it's not that lighting can't be smart but usually,

9:04there's not a decision-making process

9:06that's happening when we talk about smart lights,

9:08unless we have something like this that's also

9:10working in tandem with them.

9:12And so as we now go out into the world

9:14and we see all of the advertised smart products,

9:16hopefully, we have a little bit of a better understanding

9:19of how we can differentiate between what products are

9:21advertised as smart and which ones are actually

9:24giving us smart behavior.

9:26Well, there are certainly a lot of terms

9:27that we're going to have to get to know when it comes to IoT,

9:30and so we start at the top here just looking at the phrase IoT.

9:33IoT is more of this umbrella term.

9:35It's going to refer to everything

9:37in our world of connected devices,

9:39whether they're truly connected or truly smart

9:41and there's going to be other categories of these types

9:44of devices as well.

9:44We can get a little more granular

9:46and look at sensors versus trackers versus wearable tech

9:50and these kinds of things.

9:51They're all IoT devices, and then they

9:53can break up into other individual categories

9:55from there.

9:56Now connected devices, the key here

9:58is that we're not going to expect them to make decisions

10:01on our behalf.

10:02Yeah, we might have trigger based mechanisms,

10:04I might set alarms, I might set thresholds and have

10:06it behave a certain way, but it's really not

10:08receiving input and doing something

10:11without me really being involved in that process in some way.

10:15Now conversely, smart devices, they're

10:17actually able to make decisions based

10:18on how they've been programmed.

10:20And so, yeah, there's still human programming happening

10:23there, but at the same time, it's

10:25focused on the idea that it can receive input in and make

10:29a decision and then do something as a result.

10:32And so one of the best examples really is

10:34the light situation because I can click this button

10:36and turned my lights on, I would say

10:38that's a connected light, that's not a smart light situation.

10:41However, if I got up and I left my office and the lights

10:44detected that and decided to turn themselves off

10:46to save power, well, that would be more of a smart behavior.

10:50And so the more examples we see of this, the better equipped

10:53will be to really differentiate between connected and smart

10:56devices regardless of how they're

10:57being advertised and marketed.

10:59I hope this has been informative for you,

11:01and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05As we might imagine, IoT involves

0:07more than just a couple of devices talking to one another.

0:10Oftentimes, there are systems in place

0:12that are going to communicate to some of these devices.

0:14We might have a couple of devices.

0:16We're going to have dozens or hundreds or thousands

0:18of these IoT devices.

0:19And so in this video, we're going

0:21to explore some of these different concepts that

0:23come together, and especially think about things from an IT

0:26perspective because we're going to have to support this system.

0:30And so let's start to identify some of the technologies

0:32that we should start getting comfortable with.

0:34Let's start with one of the basic building blocks of IoT,

0:37which would be the IoT device.

0:39For a lot of us, we tend to focus on the IoT device

0:43because that's what we're purchasing potentially.

0:45We've mentioned a lot of these.

0:47We've got the light bulbs, for example.

0:49We've got the coffee maker.

0:50We've got the garage door opener.

0:51But then as we get into a little bit more

0:53of a corporate mindset, we might think

0:55about things like sensors.

0:57We mentioned the soil sensors or moisture sensors

1:00that are detecting whether or not we should

1:02water our plants, for example.

1:04We've also got things like trackers.

1:06So we might call them RFID tags or something along those lines

1:10that help us to track different components, or packages,

1:13or whatever it is that we are tracking.

1:15And so in a lot of cases, we're going

1:16to find that IoT device is meant to be highly mobile.

1:20Now, we're going to find that there are some devices that

1:23aren't mobile.

1:23Well, let's just talk about the mobile devices to begin with.

1:26If we've got mobile devices, they

1:28are going to be a lot of shared characteristics with them.

1:30First and foremost, if they're mobile,

1:32then they are probably somewhat small in nature.

1:34And yeah, that's an arbitrary designation for it.

1:37But the idea here is that if we're

1:39going to equip trackers on things, well,

1:41then we probably want them to be small enough

1:42to be attached to those things.

1:44If I want to track laptops, for example,

1:46I wouldn't want a big bulky tracker on there.

1:48I'd want something small and largely unnoticeable.

1:51And so we could say small.

1:52We could also just in general call it

1:54a low-profile type of device, something that's not

1:57too intrusive to carry around.

1:59Not too heavy, not too big, and so on and so forth.

2:02We are also going to find that we're

2:04going to need a high range on these devices.

2:07Because especially if they are mobile

2:08and they're moving around, we need to make sure

2:10they're always connected.

2:11But even if they're not necessarily mobile,

2:13but maybe, again, we've got these moisture sensors that

2:16are out in the field, well, do we have an access

2:19point near those fields?

2:20How far do those devices need to transmit in order

2:23to communicate out to the network?

2:25And so this is why we're going to need

2:27some level of range on whatever network

2:29we deploy for these devices.

2:31Another thing to consider is that we need battery life.

2:34This is absolutely mission critical.

2:36There are a lot of IoT devices that

2:38are designed to expire when the battery life expires.

2:42And so once the battery is dead, that

2:44means that the device is dead and we

2:45need to get a new device.

2:47And so whether this is the design

2:49or whether we as the IT staff have

2:51to go out and replace or charge batteries,

2:53either way the battery life is going

2:55to play into the management of our IoT devices.

2:58Now, fortunately, one of the characteristics of IoT devices

3:02typically involves a low amount of throughput.

3:05We are typically sensing information

3:07and sending that information.

3:09But somewhere around the kilobits per second range

3:12is all we're ever going to be communicating at.

3:15We don't need to send large amounts of information.

3:17And as a result, we don't need strong wireless connectivity,

3:21at least not at the same level that we're

3:23talking about for our phones and our laptops.

3:25So that describes the mobile type of devices.

3:27But we do actually have plenty of stationary devices as well.

3:31Some of these stationary devices might be quite large.

3:34So for example, let's think about maybe a smart fridge.

3:37We could deploy a smart fridge into our corporate breakroom,

3:40for example.

3:41And that's not going to be moving around.

3:43In fact, it might even be plugged in.

3:45We might have wired connectivity and wired power.

3:48This creates a very different set

3:50of needs for these stationary devices

3:52that we don't necessarily need on the mobile side.

3:54For example, because it's wired power,

3:56we no longer need to worry about batteries.

3:58And because of the network being wired in,

4:01we don't need to worry about range anymore.

4:03Now, a fridge is very large, but we might also have sensors,

4:06like we mentioned.

4:07The sensor is going out into a farm field, or sensors

4:10in a greenhouse, or sensors that are

4:12being deployed into a factory.

4:14These sensors are often very small.

4:16And so the size can vary quite a bit.

4:19We might be dealing with very large devices like a fridge

4:21or something very small that we need to worry about,

4:24making sure that they're in the right places

4:26and that we're tracking them appropriately.

4:28And so we see a very different set

4:30of needs that exist between the mobile side of IoT

4:34as well as the stationary side.

4:36And we need to be sensitive to both of these types of devices

4:39as we deploy them into our networks.

4:42Now, speaking of networks, let's talk about that

4:44because we are here talking about IoT,

4:47especially from a networking perspective.

4:50IoT devices are going to need to communicate with one another

4:54on some level.

4:55And I say on some level because some IoT devices

4:58are intended to check in now.

4:59And again, they're used to being disconnected

5:01for long periods of time.

5:03But other devices are intended to communicate constantly

5:06with one another.

5:07And so we need to recognize the type of network that's

5:10going to be required here.

5:11And so the question we have to ask

5:13is how, how are they going to be communicating with one another

5:17via some form of network?

5:18And our immediate response is probably

5:20going to be to use the existing Wi-Fi.

5:23A Wi-Fi has the advantage, first of all, of what I just said.

5:26It already exists.

5:27We don't have to deploy something new for this.

5:30And furthermore, we know it works great.

5:32It works great for our laptops.

5:34It works great for our phones.

5:36But we may have just noticed that in describing

5:39our different types of IoT devices, whether they're mobile

5:41or they're stationary, it doesn't really

5:44describe what we need for our laptops and our phones.

5:47And so this introduces some challenges

5:49to using Wi-Fi for the sake of our IoT devices.

5:53First of all, keep in mind that we need high range.

5:55And our 5 and our 6 gigahertz bands,

5:58they actually have very low range.

6:01And so very rarely will we see IoT devices

6:03being deployed that take advantage of 5 and 6 gigahertz.

6:07And so most of them are going to need to use 2.4 gigahertz.

6:11Now, we know that there are some major downsides

6:13at 2.4 gigahertz, especially that this band is very busy.

6:17And so we're going to be in lots of competition

6:19with all kinds of other devices, even independent of other IoT

6:24devices that are in our environments.

6:26There are a few other downsides to Wi-Fi we need to consider.

6:29First of all, power savings is a big deal.

6:31Power savings have been in Wi-Fi from the very beginning.

6:34However, keep in mind that our power savings

6:36are geared more towards laptops and phones, which are going

6:39to be active pretty often.

6:41And so most of our power savings don't

6:43allow for very long periods of sleep

6:45relative to what our laptops and our phones are used to doing.

6:48And yes, there have been some innovations in this space.

6:51However, Wi-Fi is trying to catch up to the power savings

6:54tools that other wireless technologies deliver.

6:57Wi-Fi is also extremely localized.

7:00We understand that in our cell phones,

7:02they have way greater range to the cell

7:05towers than they do to our Wi-Fi.

7:06As soon as I step out of my house, it's hard for me

7:09to connect to the Wi-Fi because of range.

7:11But what did we say?

7:12We need high range for our IoT devices.

7:16Some of these devices leave a building, they go outside.

7:18Some of them travel from site to site.

7:20And this is why we need a high amount of range

7:22even to the point that we might need

7:24connectivity outside of the realm of our Wi-Fi networks.

7:29So all of these challenges lead us

7:31to have a conversation about maybe deploying

7:34something that isn't Wi-Fi.

7:35And there are a lot of these non-Wi-Fi types of networks

7:38have been developed for the sake of IoT.

7:42And so we can start by just may be taking advantage

7:44of the cellular network.

7:46This isn't always the best from a cost efficiency perspective,

7:49but it's hard to beat the range and the proliferation,

7:52how widespread our cellular networks are.

7:55Now, if we're going back inside, we

7:56might consider the use of Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE.

8:00This is a version of Bluetooth that is designed especially

8:03with IoT in mind.

8:04It's going to be low-range, but it's

8:06going to have immense power savings benefits.

8:09And so it's going to very much extend

8:10our battery life by using BLE.

8:12Now, we can also use standard Bluetooth.

8:14And so if our network doesn't support BLE,

8:17then we might take advantage of standard Bluetooth.

8:19And this is used by a lot of home automation products.

8:22I think about my wearable tech.

8:23I might have, for example, a smartwatch and the smartwatch

8:27is going to use Bluetooth to connect to my phone.

8:30And this is the machine to machine traffic right here.

8:33That's the extent of it.

8:34And so standard Bluetooth is going to work in this case,

8:37even if it's not the most efficient

8:39especially from a power perspective.

8:41Now from here, we've got several technologies

8:43that might be unfamiliar to us as networking engineers.

8:46For example, we've got Zigbee.

8:48Zigbee is based on the 802.15.4 specification,

8:53and it provides an alternative to Wi-Fi

8:55for wireless communications within a building.

8:58Then we've also got some other options.

8:59For example, we've got LoRaWAN.

9:02LoRaWAN builds out a wireless area network

9:05that isn't going to use our cell towers.

9:07And from there, we've got Sigfox.

9:09Although keep in mind that even though we've

9:10got all of these options, and we'll

9:12be going into more detail on all of these options

9:15throughout this course, we can still use Wi-Fi.

9:18This is a viable option in a lot of cases.

9:20And so we're not saying that we'll never

9:22use Wi-Fi for our IoT devices.

9:24However, it might make more sense

9:26to use some of these non-Wi-Fi options.

9:28And so what's fascinating about the CWISA

9:31is that we're going to be focused a little bit more

9:33on this non-Wi-Fi communications technology.

9:36But we do still have to keep Wi-Fi in mind for all of this.

9:39And so we'll be bouncing back and forth between the two.

9:41Now, I would like to take a moment

9:43and point out that we do have different needs for IoT

9:47devices.

9:47And we'll see this repeated throughout this course.

9:50But these needs are very different from

9:51our standard Wi-Fi devices.

9:53For example, in most cases, we don't care that much about

9:56throughput.

9:56Like we mentioned, a lot of our devices,

9:58especially our sensors and such, they're

10:00going to be putting out maybe kilobits per second.

10:03And so we don't necessarily need these high throughput

10:05and Wi-Fi 6E devices.

10:08Instead, we really care more about range

10:11and we care more about power consumption.

10:13We want to keep our power consumption down.

10:16And so these are the care abouts from an IoT perspective

10:19more so than what we'd expect from a Wi-Fi perspective, which

10:22usually with Wi-Fi, we're carrying

10:25a lot more about throughput.

10:26We don't care as much about range

10:28because we've got access points everywhere,

10:30especially with some of our high-density deployments.

10:33And power consumption were sort of halfway

10:35in between on because laptops and phones have very

10:39nice extended battery life.

10:41But naturally, it's always nice to have longer battery life.

10:44And so that's why we'll call that a wash.

10:46But again, very different needs from Wi-Fi.

10:48We're not focused on those needs.

10:49We are focused on the needs of the internet of things devices.

10:53Now, one last technology we want to make sure we deploy

10:56is the concept of an IoT manager.

10:59These IoT management systems or IoT managers, however I

11:02want to say it, these systems are typically software

11:05that we're going to deploy that are going to help us to manage

11:08our IoT infrastructure.

11:11For example, we might truly have thousands of IoT devices.

11:16How exactly do we track all of these IoT devices?

11:19How do we know their battery status?

11:21How do we know where they are?

11:22Well, this is what this software is going to provide.

11:24It's going to give us all of that information,

11:27a lot of statistics on IoT devices.

11:29It's going to help with the onboarding of new IoT devices.

11:32So I just get a bunch of new sensors in.

11:35I need to connect them into the system.

11:36How do I do that?

11:37Well, an IoT management solution is

11:39going to help me to, again, get those devices

11:42on board with whatever architecture that I have.

11:45Now, one thing to note here is that this

11:47isn't the same as these mobile device

11:50managers, or MDMs, that are often sold in the Wi-Fi market.

11:54Mobile device managers are often more focused

11:56on laptops and phones and really ultimately

11:59are user-driven devices.

12:02And so we might be worried about a user logging

12:04into a laptop, for example, from a security perspective.

12:07And that works for a user devices like laptops,

12:10but we don't need to worry about that from an IoT perspective.

12:13Now, naturally, there will be some gray area in the space

12:15as some MDM platforms will claim that they

12:17can help with IoT devices.

12:19And just keep in mind that usually once again,

12:22as we said down here, that the needs are

12:23different between the systems.

12:25And as a result, we will probably

12:26want to look for a dedicated IoT management solution that

12:29will fit our needs better than an MDM

12:31that we might already be using for the user-driven devices

12:34in our network.

12:35So we talked about these three different technologies.

12:37We talked about devices, the networking, management

12:39solutions.

12:40And so we look at IoT devices, we

12:42see that they've got different needs even

12:44among the different IoT devices.

12:46Oftentimes, our IoT devices are either

12:47going to be highly mobile, which means

12:49that they're going to need extended range,

12:51they're going to need pretty good battery life,

12:53power savings methodologies, or we

12:55might find that we've got stationary IoT devices that

12:58have very different needs than the mobile ones.

13:00And so we can't just look at IoT and say, OK, this

13:03is what I need for these IoT devices

13:05because different IoT devices will have different needs.

13:08Now, speaking of needs, Wi-Fi is really

13:12geared more towards user-driven devices

13:14that are focused on throughput and user experience.

13:17And so Wi-Fi isn't always the best fit for IoT devices.

13:21Yeah, a lot of IoT devices will be

13:23able to connect to the existing Wi-Fi.

13:24And there are benefits there, not

13:26the least of which is the Wi-Fi is already there.

13:28And so let's take advantage of it

13:29and not deploy something that's going to cost us more money.

13:32But we will find that we've got all kinds of other network

13:34options the IoT might take advantage of

13:36and we're going to be exploring a lot

13:37of these different network options throughout this course.

13:40Now lastly, as we saw the device managers,

13:42yeah, we've got these mobile device managers

13:44that we might be using already for our phones and our laptops.

13:47And some of them may even tout IoT features.

13:50But we do need to recognize that there's usually

13:52a difference between MDM, which are focused

13:54on user-driven devices, and these IoT managers, which

13:57are really going to help me with onboarding my IoT devices,

14:00tracking them, inventorying them.

14:02They're going to be a little bit more geared towards IoT needs

14:06than my laptops and my phones.

14:08And so it's probably worth checking out

14:10these different IoT device managers and making sure

14:12I've got the right software solution

14:14to help me to wrap my arms around my IoT deployments.

14:16I hope this has been informative for you,

14:18and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05Well, we've given a lot of examples of IoT

0:08over the course of this skill, but let's

0:09go ahead and take a look specifically

0:11at what are some applications we can expect to see with IoT.

0:15And, yeah, we'll comment on residential,

0:17but our focus moving forward is going to be a little bit more

0:20on the business world.

0:21And so let's turn and see what exactly we

0:23can achieve by looking at things from a business perspective

0:26and also try to understand what types of value

0:29we're looking for if we're in the shoes of a business

0:32leader trying to decide whether to deploy an IoT solution.

0:35So we've already mentioned residential applications,

0:37let's go and think through at least a few more

0:39before moving on to the business world

0:41because our focus tends to be on home automation

0:44and this is where we can expect to see

0:46a lot of devices being advertised

0:48as smart or connected.

0:50And, yes, sometimes they're advertised as smart devices

0:52when they're really connected devices.

0:55So what kind of devices are out there?

0:56Well, a common one is going to be

0:58these days the smart doorbell.

0:59A lot of these smart doorbells are integrated with cameras

1:02and they can alert us to suspicious activity that's

1:05happening on our porch.

1:06We can also think about connected fridges which

1:09might have different compartments,

1:10and we can use those compartments

1:11to keep different foods at different temperatures.

1:14And we can use our phone apps in order to control them.

1:17We've also got things around our house like our televisions.

1:19We can connect to the internet, we

1:21can stream our favorite shows on our TVs

1:23and we don't need cable or anything like that

1:25in order to do that anymore.

1:27And then we've got things like speakers.

1:29I can have smart speakers around that

1:31I can have them play music off of the internet

1:34rather than playing it off of a local device here in my house.

1:37We also have a massive trend around health equipment.

1:40We mentioned wearable tech, and we

1:42can expect to see things like smartwatches

1:45that feed info into our apps and give us insights

1:48into our health.

1:49And so it's not just watches, though, we've

1:51also got things like wristbands that we can wear.

1:54We might insert a Fitbit into our wrist bands.

1:57I've got a smart water bottle for that matter.

1:59And it's really not smart, it's more of a connected water

2:02bottle, I suppose.

2:03But it tracks how much water I drink throughout the day

2:05and it will ping me if it feels like I'm not

2:07drinking enough water.

2:08And so a lot of these devices are changing the way

2:10that we live on a personal level,

2:12whether it's how we live or we work or we play,

2:14either way, this is a residential concept.

2:17It's really not geared towards business.

2:20And so as we try to shift gears, we

2:22might think, OK, well, what types of applications

2:24are there from a business perspective?

2:26In order to understand this, we need to think about a business

2:29because I don't know about you, but I love technology.

2:33And when I am a lover of technology, I might say,

2:35you know what, it's time to deploy

2:37the new technology because it's new and it's shiny

2:40and it's exciting.

2:42But new and exciting and shiny are not

2:44reasons to deploy technology at least from a business

2:47perspective.

2:48Businesses are going to care about something else.

2:50Their primary drivers are going to be centered

2:52around concepts such as revenue, for example,

2:55as well as costs and profit.

2:58And when we define these terms, the revenue

3:01is the amount of money that's brought into the company.

3:03The costs are the money that go out of the company,

3:06and generally, we want the costs to be less than the revenue

3:08because the profit is going to be the difference

3:11between revenue and costs.

3:13And so if I've got money left over,

3:15then that would be profit.

3:16And the whole point of being in business in most cases,

3:19is to turn a profit so we can continue to stay in business

3:22and pay our employees.

3:23And so I might look at this new technology

3:25and say, OK, yeah, that's great, but this

3:27is going to save me time.

3:29It's going to save me maybe an hour a day

3:31or something along those lines.

3:32And that's great if it's going to save me an hour a day,

3:35but what if it comes at a cost of $10,000 a day

3:38or something like that?

3:39At this point, we would say, OK, that's great and all.

3:41I mean, I would love to save an hour a day,

3:43but it just doesn't make business sense.

3:45It's way too much cost and it doesn't pay for itself

3:48in the long run.

3:49To be business relevant an IoT device or a system,

3:52it must provide business value.

3:55And increasing my business value is usually

3:57going to come down to either increasing my revenue

4:00or decreasing my costs.

4:02Both of which are going to result

4:03in turning a greater profit.

4:05For example, let's say I deploy a smart lighting system

4:08and this is truly a smart lighting system.

4:10It's going to detect if there's people around, it's

4:12going to turn lights off in rooms, and so on and so forth.

4:15So this smart lighting system across my enterprise,

4:18it might cost me $1 million to deploy, which sounds

4:21like a whole lot of money.

4:22I know that to me, it's a whole lot of money.

4:24But to a business, we might say, you

4:26know it's going to cost us $1,000,000

4:27but over the long run, it's going to save us $3 million.

4:32At this point, we have a concept that we call

4:34Return On Investment or ROI.

4:37The return on investment here says that, yeah, we're

4:39paying $1,000,000 upfront, but it's

4:41going to save me $3 million.

4:43I know from a home budget perspective

4:45if we could spend $1,000 up front

4:47and save $3,000 in the long run, that

4:50is a justifiable expense because of return on investment.

4:54So what are some other business relevant IoT systems?

4:58One of the big ones we're going to care about

5:00is the tracking concept.

5:01If I can deploy tracking within my environment,

5:04I can possibly make my business far more efficient

5:08in a lot of ways.

5:09So, for example, I might be tracking my inventory.

5:12If I can manage my inventory better oftentimes,

5:15this results in being able to crank out products faster

5:18or slower on an as needed basis and I'm not

5:21sitting on a bunch of inventory that's costing me money.

5:24Tracking can also help to prevent theft

5:26in a lot of cases.

5:27A common example of the way that IoT can help prevent theft

5:30would be with hospitals worrying about wheelchairs.

5:33Oftentimes, wheelchairs can disappear.

5:36The patients will take them out to their cars,

5:38and they might just fold them up and take them away with them.

5:41But if a wheelchair is equipped with a tracker

5:43and it crosses a certain boundary something

5:46that we call geofencing which we'll be talking about later,

5:49then we can alert a guard to walk out and just make sure

5:53that they don't take that wheelchair

5:55and fold it up and put it in the back of their car.

5:57And so if we have to pay some amount of money

6:00in order to deploy the tracking application and the tracking

6:03IoT devices, yeah, it's going to cost money up front,

6:06but if it prevents theft or if it helps me not have to go out

6:09and buy more wheelchairs constantly,

6:11then it will pay for itself in the long run

6:13and it comes back to this return on investment concept.

6:16We've also got sensor systems that we can put into place.

6:19And so our sensors might include things like the smart lighting

6:23that I just mentioned.

6:24So now we've got sensors in rooms

6:26and it can detect when there's nobody there

6:27and it can turn lights off.

6:29We can also have this tied to the HVAC system.

6:32And so my heating, and my ventilation, and my AC,

6:35my air conditioning, and that's what we call HVAC.

6:38And so if there's nobody in the building,

6:41then, hey, why keep the building fully heated during the winter?

6:44We might be able to take it down 5 or 10 degrees

6:46when nobody's there.

6:48And conversely when somebody shows up,

6:49we automatically start heating the room for them

6:51or the whole building if needed.

6:52But either way, this can also save a lot of money.

6:55There are also plenty of ways to deploy devices

6:57that are going to increase the efficiency of my employees

7:00or the efficiency of my processes.

7:02And what we're going to find is that there are just

7:04dozens of different applications of IoT devices

7:07that are ultimately going to drive business value,

7:10and ultimately, justify the cost of deploying

7:13those kinds of systems.

7:14Now, in fairness, there are sometimes

7:16other drivers at play.

7:17So we tend to focus on the revenue and the profit concept,

7:21but we might find that we've got special initiatives that we're

7:24trying to meet.

7:25So even if it comes at a net cost or a net loss,

7:28then at that point, if we're satisfying certain initiatives

7:32that means that it's still viewed as a success.

7:34And so, for example, if our smart lighting

7:36is going to cost $1 million, but it only saves us maybe

7:40$750,000 a year, we'd say, well, that's a net loss of $250,000.

7:46But maybe we have an initiative to reduce our electricity use.

7:50And so the fact that our electricity use goes down,

7:52yeah, it's going to come at a cost to us,

7:55but it satisfies the initiative to use lower electricity.

7:58This might be a company initiative that says, hey,

8:01we would like to be more sensitive to environmental

8:04concerns and so we're trying to reduce electricity usage,

8:07but it can also be a regulatory thing.

8:09We might live in a part of the world

8:11where we have to reduce our electricity

8:13or risk paying severe fines.

8:15And so regardless of the reason for the initiative,

8:17we might find that there are reasons to deploy systems

8:20that come at a net cost to the organization.

8:23Now, one of the realities of this whole situation

8:25is that a lot of these decisions are made on the business side,

8:29meaning that our managers, our directors potentially

8:31our executives are making these decisions

8:34and they're deciding things like,

8:36I'm going to deploy this IoT system

8:38or that IoT set of devices.

8:40And those decisions end up coming down to us in IT.

8:44And we, in IT, are expected to manage the IoT devices.

8:48We're expected to deploy them and to onboard them

8:50and to make this system work.

8:51And so that's the whole reason why we're here

8:53is to understand and learn the IoT systems

8:56because we might be handed a bunch of equipment

8:59that we have to deploy.

9:00Now, every now and again, we might

9:01have to go back to the business leaders and say,

9:03hey, you decide to do this, but we

9:06need to deploy a whole Bluetooth low-energy system to support

9:09it, that kind of thing.

9:10And so this is yet another reason

9:11why it's so important that we understand this technology

9:14that we are going to ultimately be responsible for managing

9:17and deploying.

9:18So as we see here, we've got a lot of different applications

9:21that we might see deployed from an IoT perspective.

9:24And it does start with residential applications

9:26because for a lot of us, we've got--

9:28maybe that technology we've started

9:29to deploy at home or maybe we've thought about deploying

9:32or at least we've seen some videos on

9:33and say, wow, that's cool.

9:35And so we understand what some of these home automation

9:37or health gear types of IoT devices

9:41look like because we might be using them or again

9:43considering using them.

9:45But businesses, they tend to focus

9:46on things other than just, hey, this is cool

9:49or this might be provide useful data.

9:51We need to think about things from a revenue, from a cost

9:53perspective, and potentially other initiatives as well.

9:56And so regardless of what those initiatives are

9:59or what the business driver is, they're

10:01definitely thinking about things differently than we and IT

10:04might think about.

10:05When I say they, I mean, our business directors

10:07aren't our executives and such.

10:08And so as part of the IT staff, we

10:12might receive these IoT solutions,

10:14but we always need to be thinking about things

10:16from the business driver perspective

10:18because that will help us to understand why IoT has been

10:21decided to be deployed, whether it's a bunch of sensors

10:23or trackers or this or that.

10:25And so that can create a dialogue between IT

10:28and the business world.

10:29And, hey, the more that we can speak to business needs,

10:31the more likely our business leaders will come to us

10:34and talk to us about the different solutions

10:36they're considering rather than just pushing something down

10:39at us and expecting us to support it.

10:41So ultimately, as-- where we are in IT,

10:44we do need to understand things from a technical perspective.

10:47But if we can understand things from a business perspective

10:49as well, that's going to be really beneficial to us

10:52in our careers and in our jobs, again,

10:55building those relationships a little bit stronger.

10:57I hope this has been informative for you,

10:59and I'd like to Thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:05Well, we've reached the end of a skill here.

0:07And what we're going to do throughout this course is

0:09as we end a skill, we want to do a review

0:11to make sure we lock in the knowledge that we talked about.

0:13We won't be able to hit on every single detail,

0:15but we are going to try to hit up the main concepts from each

0:18of the videos to make sure that, once again, we've just

0:21got this information all down.

0:23So what I encourage you to do is, as we read these questions,

0:25to pause the video, and make sure you've taken enough time

0:28to see if you can answer it.

0:29And if you aren't able to answer it,

0:31then maybe go back and review the materials,

0:33or review your notes.

0:34And otherwise, if you can check it off,

0:36then that's an indication that you've got

0:37the necessary information down.

0:39So let's go ahead and review these quiz questions together.

0:42First and foremost, what differentiates a smart device

0:46from a connected device?

0:52Well, as we discussed, the smart device

0:54is able to make decisions.

0:56That's what adds intelligence to a device

0:58is taking information and sorting through it

1:01and deciding how exactly to react to that information.

1:05A connected device, on the other hand,

1:06it's not usually taking information in

1:08and making decisions.

1:09Instead, we might see that there are certain triggers.

1:12Maybe there are alarms or preconfigured values

1:14that's going to result in it taking action.

1:18We might see that.

1:18But for the most part, our connected devices

1:20are also focused on maybe just providing information.

1:23Maybe they're going to send information

1:24to an app on our phone.

1:26So we can look at it and interface with it in some way.

1:29But again, a truly smart device is

1:31going to be focused on being able to make decisions.

1:34And it will usually make those decisions

1:35based on the outputs from sensors

1:38and other components like that.

1:40Question two, what are two downsides

1:42to using Wi-Fi for IoT devices?

1:49Well, unfortunately for us, even though a lot of us

1:51are familiar with Wi-Fi, we've been using it

1:53for probably a lot of our IoT careers,

1:56ultimately, we can't always use it for IoT.

1:59And there's a couple of reasons for that.

2:00First of all, we might find that the range isn't sufficient.

2:03Wi-Fi has a pretty notoriously short range to it,

2:06especially compared to other wireless networking,

2:08such as our mobile networks, our cellular towers, things

2:12like that.

2:13And then the other big concern is

2:14that it is going to require more power consumption than some

2:16of the alternatives.

2:18And so as we look at some of these other options,

2:20the throughput being too limiting

2:21is definitely not a factor.

2:23Wi-Fi actually gives us an enormous amount

2:25of throughput, especially relative to what

2:26we need with IoT, which as we said,

2:28we don't need much in the way of throughput.

2:30The 6 gigahertz being required for IoT devices is not true.

2:33In fact, it's quite the opposite.

2:35IoT devices don't want to use 6 gigahertz,

2:37because it has a lower range.

2:39And so what we often find is that if an IoT device is using

2:42Wi-Fi, it's going to do so on the 2.4-gigahertz band.

2:46And 2.4 gigahertz offers all kinds of downsides as well,

2:50including just how busy it is and how much competition there

2:52is in the wireless space.

2:54And saying Wi-Fi doesn't support IoT is actually not true

2:57either.

2:58Wi-Fi does support it.

2:59Once again, if it does support it, it's usually 2.4 gigahertz.

3:02But ultimately, we might purchase

3:04IoT devices that are designed to go onto the Wi-Fi.

3:07We just have to be cognizant of the range issue

3:09as well as the power issue for our devices.

3:12All right, here's our third and last question.

3:14Which of the following is a business driver

3:15for IoT adoption?

3:22So the key word here is business.

3:24We've got to think about things from a business perspective.

3:27So we need to put ourselves in the shoes of our managers

3:29and our executives.

3:30And so when we look at these, the only driver here

3:33that could really be tied to business

3:34is going to be C, the fact that we could possibly recuperate

3:38our costs in a specified time.

3:40Remember, we had a word for this,

3:41or maybe a phrase for this.

3:42It's called Return On Investment, or ROI.

3:45We are going to get a return on the investment we're making.

3:48Our investment is going to cost us some amount of money.

3:51But we will either make that money back or potentially

3:53even profit eventually if the revenues continue

3:56to grow over the course of time, thanks to our adoption.

3:59Now, everything else we might consider

4:01to be reasons to deploy new technology,

4:03like the excitement of deploying it.

4:05Certainly, we might do that at home--

4:07buy new technology because it looks cool.

4:09But we can't say that we are going

4:11to do something that has a business value regardless

4:13of the cost.

4:14As we mentioned, it might not be worth $10,000 a day

4:17to save me an hour, and so on and so forth.

4:19And then the product getting great reviews

4:21should absolutely be a factor.

4:22We don't want to deploy a bad product.

4:24But we're not going to deploy something

4:25just because it gets great reviews, which

4:27once again, maybe ties to the excitement of deploying

4:30a product.

4:30So once again, let's think about things

4:32from a business perspective.

4:33And think about revenues and costs and profit but also

4:37those business initiatives that might also

4:39be driving our decision-making.

4:41So with that, this quiz is done.

4:43If you couldn't quite make the right decisions

4:44when it came to these quiz questions,

4:45then be sure to go back and review the materials.

4:48And be sure to seal off any knowledge gaps.

4:50Otherwise, congratulations on completing

4:51Describe Internet of Things, or IoT, Technologies.

4:54I hope this has been informative for you,

4:56and I'd like to thank you for viewing.