As various market reports continue to surface for the estimated value of the Internet of Things market in the coming years, one thing is clear - the market will be massive.
So massive, in fact, many experts are predicting that IT systems in place today simply won't be able to handle it.
A new report from IB Intelligence claims since the IoT will include such a thick layer of consumer devices constantly communicating with each other it will account for an increasingly huge number of connections as it evolves.
The report claims there are already some 1.9 billion devices in place and that number will grow to over 9 billion by 2018. The report adds this number will eclipse the total number of smartphones, smart TVs, tablets, wearable devices and PCs combined.
This explosion in what were once inert objects becoming connected devices will create a flood of data that many feel will make the familiar client-server systems in use today obsolete.
"In the coming decade, the IoT will cause the bandwidth gap to balloon out of control," said Dr. Deepak Kumar, CTO and founder of IT systems provider Adaptiva. "Enterprises will see enormous amounts of traffic coming from a massive number of sources. In addition to more bandwidth, enterprises need to plan for bandwidth optimization and stricter traffic management."
Another area of concern as the IoT market expands will be security as entirely new types of endpoints are introduced to IT systems.
Expect cloud technology to play a major role in helping to alleviate these issues as companies begin turning their attention to public clouds such as Amazon Web Services, among others. The development of what is being called hybrid clouds, which combine the scale of public clouds with the security and reliability of internal systems, are also on the horizon. EMC, an information technology services provider, is one company offering this technology in preparation for the tsunami of data exchange that will come with the growth of the IoT market.
"The mix of private and public cloud solutions will vary by organization, but it's clear that public cloud will be a part of any future IT strategy," said Jay Snyder, COO at EMC.
As the IoT continues to gain steam expect more and more companies to begin looking into emerging strategies to deal with the new paradigm of tomorrow's connected consumer.
