IoT Life Cycle

Deploy: The life cycle of an IoT device
starts from the moment it is deployed (that
is, embedded with sensors, microprocessors,
actuators, synched with an IoT Application
or software, a communication network, and a
cloud system, etc.), and the assigning of
and Identification code.
Monitor: The deployed IoT Device then,
monitors the person, or parameters, or
whatever the IoT that defines the device is.
The device is in turn being monitored by the
main control system and its movements are
tracked.
Service: The IoT device then acts in service
by carrying out its function by sensing and
recording data and storage on a cloud
system.
Manages: The device then communicates the
obtained data from the cloud server with
other IoT devices over an established
network protocol. To analyze the data with
the help of an IoT Application and come up
with useful results.
Update: You would need to carry out periodic
updates on the IoT device as the
manufacturers are always releasing new
upgrades with each technological
advancement. The IoT device also updates the
user via the IoT Application as a
user-sensors interface of the sensors and
the users of the decisions, information, and
data obtained.
Decommission: As nothing lasts forever, your
IoT device will need to be decommissioned
someday.
The challenges of the Internet of
Things (IoT) application
The benefits provided by IoT are immense and
I believe, quite obvious but, along with the
vast advantages it brings, it is accompanied
by various challenges, some of which are
listed below;
Security and privacy
This is arguably the most pressing issue
facing IoT. Due to the need for IoT to be
connected to the internet, it gives
cyber criminals a way to access information
and perform other perverse acts using the
IoT devices as means to gain access. The lax
security provided by a disturbingly large
percentage of the device manufacturers does
nothing to help the situation.
With adequate preventive measures, it is
possible to if not eliminate this problem,
at least lessen it to an extent. In this
regard, Privacy is sadly different. It is
inevitable that with the amount of IoT
devices potentially accessible information,
privacy will reduce.
Sharing and Management of
data
The problem of data sharing consists of many
different issues that can affect the
application of IoT. These include;
- The immense and ever-increasing growth
of data these past years.
- Reduction of data latency between
machine-to-machine interactions caused
by the growth of data.
- An ever-rising technicality in sharing
data among multiple devices.
Infrastructure
You should know that as of now, the
infrastructure capable of effectively
handling such immense data globally is not
yet widely available.
How do IoT devices work?
IoT devices’ working mechanisms and
methodology are quite simple in theory. IoT
devices are connected to a local network,
using the sensors they are equipped with,
they gather data from their physical
surroundings, and this data is then
transferred to cloud servers through the use
of the internet or an established data
transmission protocol.
Furthermore, the data stored in the cloud
server is then analyzed by the IoT
Application and provided through a user
interface in form of a dashboard on a
computer or tablet to the end-user.
The End user can, in turn, respond to this
information and communicate data to the
cloud server which in turn transmits the
information to the IoT devices.
Most of this operation is carried out in
real-time; the transfer of information is a
two-way communication that helps operate IoT
devices. Various components make up an IoT,
all must be present to ensure the smooth
running of devices, they include; the IoT
device, local network, the internet, and
back-end servers.
What is the fate of IoT-acquired
Data?
The process through which data passes after
it is collected from IoT devices can be
broken down into stages;
Firstly, the data acquired will be sent to
the main application to either be sent on or
consumed. This can happen in real-time, or
it can be sent in batches. The data
communication is also in part, dependent on
the type of device, the network and power
consumption, etc.
Next up is the storing of data, depending on
whether data is taken in batches or in
real-time, the data is properly stored using
database systems such as Cassandra. It
possesses nodes that can handle transactions
as they come and even if a node is lost due
to one reason or the other, the rest of the
cluster can continue to process data without
being affected, ensuring no data is lost
over time
And lastly, analyzing the stored data, data
that has been stored over time will be
sorted through, to look for trends, which
take place over time.
Can IoT function without internet
connetion?
With the internet in its very name, IoT
(internet of things), it is easy to conclude
that it should be impossible for it to work
without a connection to the internet but,
this is only partly true. The IoT systems
are smart gadgets that can observe the
physical world, collecting useful
information from its surroundings, which
help it with a decision. And for this,
communication is required.
IoT devices can function without the use of
the internet, by having a connection with
other gadgets to form a local network, which
can be used to automate certain tasks. It
can be interacted with using direct commands
or by changing its configuration, but it is
impossible to access it remotely. For remote
access to the system, the internet would be
required.
Methods that could be taken to
prevent IoT devices and systems
The application of IoT is everywhere, like
IoT applications in smart homes, or IoT
applications in healthcare and industries.
With the convenience that IoT brings it also
carries security risks that can lead to the
compromising of your data. This is due to
the lax requirements of passwords for these
devices, or resource constraints, which
makes it easy to target by cybercriminals.
However, there are ways to ensure you can
enjoy the benefits of IoT, while minimizing
security risks, such as;
- Making sure that your router and devices
are changed from the default passwords,
and are each given new and unique
passwords.
- It is important to constantly update the
device, as security patches could have
been made which further strengthen the
security of the device.
- Take care to not connect any
sensitive/important email accounts to
the device, if an email is needed, then
another can be created personally, and
particularly for only the device.
- This also applies to all credit and
debit cards, it is imperative to have
separate cards for these devices if
needs be.
There are further measures which could be
taken to protect the devices themselves,
such as;
- Implementing special IoT security during
the designing phase of the devices.
- The use of PKI and digital certificates,
PKI uses a two-key asymmetric
cryptosystem which facilitates the
encryption and decryption of private
messages and interactions with the use
of digital certificates
- Also, the use of network securities and
API (Application Program Interface)
contribute massively to protect IoT
devices.