Internet of Things: A Hands On Course

The term “Internet of Things” is starting to gain recognition and traction within the industry, however it is still an immature space. To some, mainly chip manufacturers, the term Internet of Things, or IoT for short, is a concept in which electronic devices and everyday objects  ̶  such as refridgerators, thermostats, or light bulbs  ̶  are connected to the Internet and each other through various methods such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Competing SDOs and industry consortiums exist, such as the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC)  with the mission to develop standards and certification for devices, and the AllSeen Alliance, which has a similar goal. These separate consortiums are both trying to provide a common language for these devices and objects so they can more easily connect and communicate with each other.

Other people take a wider view of IoT than just getting to control refrigerators, thermostats, or light bulbs that can communicate with the wider world. We can use ThingSpeak, open source Internet of Things applications and APIs to store and retrieve data from Things using standardized protocols and services. Through new searching techniques we might collate and analyse large data sets (Big Data) and apply new visualization approaches to understand the world around us. For carriers, how communications or even intrusion attacks are impacting us or our customers.

The increasingly connected user will need to deploy efficiently managed connection services wherever they are located. Improved mobile cellular connection, WiFi and other generally wireless communications will allow the army new devices to link into the network at low cost and with ever increasing battery life allowed by ever lower power consumption. All this interconnection and interaction brings its own security challenges and we must build the systems to take these into account.

Understanding the new and fast changing world is becoming key to those working in carriers, manufacturers of all consumer devices, corporate enterprises that want to upscale their efficiency and improve their management. This hands-on course provides managers, service planners, system integrators, engineers and systems architecture professionals an opportunity to undertake hands-on exercises that enable them to understand this new generation of technology.