Think about these three details clearly, and your Internet of Things will be truly implemented!

[51CTO.com original article] The Internet of Things is another great revolution after the industrial and information revolutions. It will bring human society into a new era of intelligence, give birth to tens of trillion-level economic markets, and become the "driver" and "productivity" that promotes world economic growth and human social progress. The concept of the Internet of Things is certainly familiar to everyone, but is people's understanding of the Internet of Things really professional enough?

The answer is obviously no.

According to a survey conducted by Accenture, only 19% of business and government professionals have an initial vague understanding of the Internet of Things.

Charlie Ashton, senior director of market strategy and business development for network products at Wind River, pointed out that the Internet of Things is still in its infancy and there is still a long way to go before we can truly understand the benefits and challenges brought by the Internet of Things. He told reporters that when Wind River talks to customers about how to move towards the era of the Internet of Everything, he will emphasize three key points: security, device lifecycle management, and actual visible return on investment.

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Three Tips for Getting Started with the Internet of Things

Charlie Ashton first clarified the relationship between these three with reporters.

From the perspective of enterprise customers, the first thing to consider is whether to get involved in the Internet of Things and why to enter the Internet of Things. After thinking about this foundation clearly, the most important thing left is to consider the return on investment of entering the Internet of Things.

Unlike other investment behaviors, the Internet of Things is a technical investment. First, it takes time, because the entire process of equipment service from design and development, market launch, user procurement, to deployment, operation, maintenance, and equipment service is quite long, and equipment life cycle management is required; second, there must be a sufficient security foundation, and only with security can there be the possibility of further development and growth. Security is a relatively weak link in traditional equipment, but it is different in the field of the Internet of Things, especially software-defined devices, which have diverse functions. Whether it is application scenarios or performance operation, security is a must-have option at all times throughout the entire equipment life cycle.

“Security, device lifecycle management and return on investment are three different aspects, but they are interdependent and closely related,” Charlie Ashton concluded. “If you want to make the Internet of Things a reality, these three aspects must be carefully planned.”

IoT security, a difference

In Charlie Ashton's opinion, due to its open nature, security risks are hard to avoid in open source software. He told reporters that Wind River obtains open source software code from the open source community, processes and organizes it, and then returns it to the open source community in accordance with the agreement, so Wind River is also improving the security of the open source community. Since Wind River has made a relatively large contribution in terms of security, from another perspective, it is precisely because of the participation of Wind River that the open source software used by everyone has become safer.

When it comes to software security, Charlie Ashton said that performance and security are always in fundamental conflict and are always in a game. He said that a basic strategy for software security and reliability development certification is isolation. Strengthening isolation will reduce performance, while reducing isolation will increase efficiency but cause chaos. "Wind River focuses on reconciling and resolving this fundamental conflict."

The reporter learned that virtualization is often mentioned in software definition. One example is to divide the running time of a CPU into time slices to make the utilization rate higher. This is the basic concept of CPU virtualization. However, if the isolation is not good, different applications will affect each other. For example, when the CPU is interrupted and then restored, it is necessary to protect the various data parameters of the time slice at that time. Once modified by other applications, recovery becomes a problem and the system will be in chaos. Isolation is fully considered in the virtualization algorithm. Charlie Ashton proudly told reporters that among all commercial software in the world, Wind River's isolation is second to none.

Charlie Ashton is optimistic about IoT security. He believes that although IoT devices have many vulnerabilities, from a technical perspective, security levels have been improving and have come a long way. When facing IoT attacks, manufacturers also have the strength to resist and are not powerless.

He emphasized that IoT security should be considered from three perspectives: first, the device itself is secure and can prevent malicious attacks; second, the application of the device itself will not cause security problems to users, nor will it cause malicious effects; third, the device obeys instructions and is reliable.

In special applications, performance must give way to reliability

Charlie Ashton also talked to reporters about the security of the operating system. He thinks why industry giants like Microsoft are often criticized for operating system security issues? The key lies in the choice of technical routes. Microsoft products are often used in large data centers, giving priority to performance and resource utilization rather than real-time and reliability. Charlie Ashton said that Wind River focuses on special applications, the embedded space is relatively small, and security and reliability are given priority. He took airplanes as an example. The reliability requirements for instruction execution of airplanes are much higher than the performance requirements. Therefore, Wind River's operating system modules are used on a large number of airplanes around the world, and even the aviation Mars rover uses Wind River's operating system. One of the most important factors why these industries choose Wind River is that Wind River's operating system prioritizes reliability.

He gave an example, saying that the technical strategy for selecting the CPU for the Mars rover is to reduce performance to a very low level and maximize reliability. One of the reasons is that there are strong radiation rays in the universe, which greatly interfere with effective signals, so the CPU must have an anti-radiation design and the main frequency must be reduced to a very low level to ensure reliability. Under the premise of ensuring safety and reliability, Wind River can maximize CPU performance, which is also an important reason why Wind River has become an irreplaceable provider.

Greenfield and Brownfield

In the investment industry, there are often terms like greenfield and brownfield. The so-called "greenfield" refers to building from scratch and investing in new areas, so greenfield investment is also called creation investment. In contrast, "brownfield" means using existing facilities for operation instead of building new ones. This term is also applied by Wind River to the construction of the Internet of Things.

Charlie Ashton emphasized that the investment in the Internet of Things is huge and uncertain, so he suggested that corporate customers should not be too concerned about short-term investment returns. As technology matures from development, people need to consider investment returns, and corresponding market strategies should also keep up. He suggested taking a step-by-step approach, using the technology of the Internet of Things to focus more on existing equipment in operation, to maximize its value, improve operational efficiency, appropriately reduce investment, and increase returns. In other words, increase investment in "brownfields".

Wind River has a very complete solution for the IoT greenfield market. What many people don’t know is that Wind River is also doing well in the IoT brownfield market. Taking the transportation industry as an example, Wind River cooperated with IoT operating system and application software manufacturers to provide an IoT solution to a US trucking company. The clever thing is that the solution adopts the form of a game competition. Drivers voluntarily join and compete in the same mileage. Whoever takes the shortest time, consumes the least fuel, and has the shortest route will win. The winning points can also get refueling rewards. With this solution, the transportation company has improved the driver’s participation, solved the transportation route planning problem, saved time and fuel, and achieved two goals with one stone.

The reporter learned that Wind River's IoT solution was also first applied in the port forklift market. With Wind River's operating system, online software updates, parts replacement reminders, and oil replacement reminders for forklifts can all be realized. The effect after implementation is very significant. The forklift has high working efficiency and greatly improved maintenance efficiency. Since the operating system can detect the forklift's condition, make an appointment with the 4S shop in advance, and let the 4S shop prepare in advance, it also saves a lot of time costs.

Charlie Ashton emphasized that the benefits brought by the Internet of Things can be viewed from two aspects. One is to make slight changes to the original business model. Enterprise customers can do this first, through software, networking, and clear isolation to achieve. The other aspect is that brand-new fields will produce disruptive business models, which require more targeted thinking. This can be understood first and realized while doing.

At the end of the interview, he said that the development of China's Internet of Things is very rapid, and of course we need to look back and not ignore the brownfield area, and use real products to generate some visible returns. After all, even greenfields will soon become brownfields, and there is no shortage of market space for relatively mature brownfield solutions.

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