Hi Everyone! Glad to have you on board. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today, I’ll cover the Role of Cloud Computing in IoT.
Digital transformation has gained momentum in the past few years, the reason traditional technologies are becoming obsolete over time. Now organizations are incorporating modern technologies into their business model at an accelerated pace. These technologies produce the influx of data and at times it becomes very difficult to process and handle that data, thanks to cloud computing that has made the handling of data easy and effective. You don’t need traditional data centers anymore to store and process information. Everything will be taken care of remotely in the cloud with data centers.
Not to mention, this is the era of automation. Companies strive to accommodate automation in the activities of their business so they can achieve maximum output without the interference of humans. And this trend complements the arrival of IoT (internet of things). The IoT is nothing but a data source and cloud computing is used to store and process that data. We’ll touch on this further in this article.
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Role of Cloud Computing in IoT
Both cloud computing and IoT are separate terms but can work together for better efficiency and productivity. The former is an architecture that offers on-demand computing resources to the end-users to process, store and handle data over the internet while the latter is a technology that acts as a data source from where data is produced. In simple words, IoT (internet of things) is a network of ‘things’ like physical objects, humans, and machines connected and collect and exchange data in real-time through embedded sensors. For instance, a human with a heart monitoring device and a car with sensors that send an instant alert to the driver for any danger fall under the umbrella of IoT.
According to Statista, “the total Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices worldwide is expected to reach 30.9 billion units by 2025, compared to 13.8 billion units that were expected in 2021.”
This projects that billions of devices connected will produce enormous data which makes cloud computing a major part of the IoT technology. Both IoT and cloud computing are inseparable and make an effective integration. In the following, we’ll stretch on this further.
How Cloud Computing and IoT Work Together
As touched on earlier, IoT devices are connected with each other and can produce a flood of data that needs to be handled and processed somewhere. Cloud computing serves that purpose. If IoT devices are connected with traditional data centers, it takes a capital investment to install, manage, scale and upgrade machines on-premises to handle that data. While with cloud computing, virtual infrastructure is created that allows the developers to access and handle computing resources remotely without having to worry about the management of on-site IT infrastructure.
There are cloud service providers that offer cloud computing services to end-users. The common service providers include AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. The computing capabilities they offer are virtually endless that can effectively process and store the information produced by IoT devices. These providers commonly offer pay-as-you-go service which means you can scale up or scale down the resources as per the requirement of connected IoT devices.
Advantages of Cloud Computing with IoT
Cloud computing and IoT are not the same but they complement each other. The following are the main advantages of combining IoT data with cloud computing infrastructure.
1: Cloud Computing Secures IoT Data
Security is the top priority for any organization to run its business activities successfully. And when companies use cloud computing to their advantage, it gives them a sense of security because your data is processed and stored in remote data centers managed globally. The cloud service providers have a network of servers located at multiple locations which means your data is not stored at one data center, instead, the system creates files of your data at multiple locations in different data centers. If one server goes down, you can get a copy of data from another server.
Whether you pick private cloud or public cloud is another parameter to guarantee the security of your sensitive data. This is how it works – companies use the public cloud for storing a large amount of data and the private cloud to process sensitive data locally. If you want to keep your IoT safe and secure, you can pick a private cloud for this purpose.
2: Cloud Offers Mobility to IoT Data
Cloud makes IoT data easily accessible which means you can remotely access information produced by IoT devices from anywhere in the world. Quick and on-spot data access is crucial when it comes to monitoring information gained by connected IoT devices. In IoT technology, we often get continuous readings from the attached sensors and that readings need to be stored and monitored quickly to make instant decisions.
To stretch this further, you can even use edge computing (which is the extension of cloud computing) to your advantage for handling IoT data. The difference between edge computing and cloud computing is the time it takes to process the information. In edge computing, data doesn’t go to the cloud, instead, it goes to the edge device installed near the data source which takes less time to process it.
3: Cloud Model is Cost-Effective for IoT technology
IoT-based businesses often pick cloud computing to speed up their business operations. Since on-site IT infrastructure is costly and requires up-front payment for the management of traditional data centers. While cloud models remove the hassle of hardware maintenance and give you the flexibility to pick the pricing package best suitable for your business needs.
Common Questions
The following are the frequently asked questions when it comes to integrating IoT with cloud computing.
Is Cloud Computing Necessary for IoT?
Technically speaking the answer is no and yes. NO, if you want to locally process your data in on-site IT infrastructure. YES, if you want to leverage the cloud since it’s preferable to pick the cloud model when there is a flood of information to be handled and stored.
How does cloud computing work with IoT?
There are four different cloud models named public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and community cloud. You can pick any model based on your business needs and requirements. It all depends on the type of data you want to manage and store. For sensitive information to manage, you can prefer the private cloud model, and for non-sensitive, you can opt for the public cloud model. A hybrid model is another option that gives you the option to integrate both private and public clouds into your business.
How do I know if the cloud is right for me?
It depends on the requirement of IT infrastructure. Do your current IT requirements constantly change over the year? Do local data centers cost you more? What is the type of data? The number of connected IoT devices? These are the main questions you need to ask if you need a cloud model or not. This cloud architecture is mainly suited for you if want cost-effective and reliable solutions to handle enormous data.
Conclusion
Technology is evolving and every business uniquely works to keep up with the pace of this technology.
Billions of devices are expected to be connected through IoT technology, the information produced by these devices is difficult to handle if you apply the traditional approach to handle and process that information.
As the demand to handle and manage a data grows, organizations will integrate cloud computing into their business models.
And on-demand availability with cloud computing is what makes this model more attractive since this way you can monitor and access your information remotely from anywhere in the world. This trend will complement the usage of more IoT devices in the cloud computing model.
It is safe to say that cloud computing is expected to open new and flexible opportunities for IoT-based businesses to handle, store and process a bulk of data.
That’s all for today. Hope you loved reading this article. If you’re unsure or have any questions, you can ask me in the section below. I’d love to help you the best way I can. Feel free to share your experience with the IoT and cloud computing integration. Thank you for reading this article.
