When referencing the Internet of Things, it is important to understand that it is really about the data being transmitted, not the devices or the applications. If these devices or applications remained in communication with only their own platform, they would not be part of IoT. These devices must be interacting with traditional applications to be playing a part in the IOT.

To facilitate the expansion of the IOT, APIs are being built at an accelerated pace.

In the report from GIGAOM Research called Building an API-driven Ecosystem for the Internet of Things, there are Key findings that include:

• IoT hardware is not the end game: The profits, margins, and innovations will come from the new products and services built on open, flexible APIs.
• Technical excellence is not enough. Successful IoT developers must properly onboard, support, monetize, secure, and evolve their platforms in order to compete.
• Modern APIs enable service composition rather than individual functions, creating an IoT supply chain.
• Ecosystem architects should build on practices established in mobile-app development for their foundation, customizing only when necessary.

The IT staffs of medium-sized companies will be seeing more requests to integrate the IoT with their mission critical applications. There is a need for the data from these devices and applications to be made available to business applications for increased corporate value. Businesses are integrating specialized devices and applications with core business processes for analytics and advanced business processing. This data has now become corporate data.

The result is more complex data types within the corporate business data environment. This provides an additional burden on the IT staff in understanding the implications of developing backup procedures for these diverse data types.

To discuss this trend in further detail, contact Salvus Data, a data backup and recovery MSP with consultants experienced in backing up complex data types.