Key Benefits of Big Data for Developing Smart Cities

 With rapid innovation taking place in the technological fields like- AI, IoT, data analytics, smart cities have been one of the fast-paced developments to occur using the above-stated technologies.

So, what exactly is a smart city? A smart city refers to an urban area that is well-equipped with basic infrastructure for providing its citizens a quality lifestyle.

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Why Smart Cities need solid cloud computing foundation

A city is not just as smart as its people, but also as much as its computing prowess and in that department cloud is the over-arching technology with super computer-like proficiency. The First-ever IDC Smart Cities Spending Guide released in March this year predicted that spending will accelerate over the 2016-2021 forecast period, reaching $45.3 billion in 2021. In Asia-Pacific (except Japan) alone, the Smart Cities will consume $28.3 billion in 2018 alone! With such investment-heavy projects in the offing, use of the best technology in business is only just organic.

About Smart Cities
 
To have sustainable economic development and improve the quality of life of citizens, countries all over the world are proceeding towards establishing ‘smart cities’. Now, any city cannot be termed smart if it has certain amount of automation incorporated in its system. A city can be called 'smart' if this economic development and high quality of life is achieved along with organized conservation of natural resources as well as with participation from its citizens. The investments in human capital and technology should produce a smart city that include networking applications, data management and optimization, sensors, software and real-time information analytics that can transform the urban environment and address specific needs.

Thus, use of ICT solutions is inevitable. These can help in resolving urban problems and monitor their functions. While new technology and innovation are the need of the hour in any Smart City solutions, there is also the need of great capacity.

Cloud Technology 

A common string that connects the entire smart city is data and not just some but terabytes and petabytes of data that gadgets connected to people, buildings and transportation among other things create. Without a strategic approach to control this data smart cities cannot deliver on their promise.
Handling such huge quantity of heterogeneous data requires high storage capacity and computing power. For this, the continually developing cloud computing scenario coupled with Internet of Things needs to be widely deployed in cities. The cloud will facilitate storage, integration, processing and analysis of this big data in low time frames.

Currently, many citizen services involving IT are delivered by domain-specific vendors through tightly coupled systems. Services like transportation or health care have domain-specific application requirements leading to isolated systems with firmly joined infrastructure and application logic. Scalability is a challenge in these systems, and the creation of new services is hampered due to closed relationships between stakeholders. Cloud solutions can reduce such intergovernmental silos wherein different departments have no idea or understanding of what other departments are doing. Such domain-independent, cloud-based service-delivery platform for smart cities delivers an open and scalable platform and encourages collaboration between stakeholders in both IoT and clouds.
Cloud solutions can also support both public and private deployment models. In the former, the stakeholders can keep their applications on a public cloud while in the latter, they can deploy services on equipment at their own sites and feel the maximum potential of privacy and security requirements.
The rise of IoT has given birth to thousands of interconnected devices that can be exploited for mischievous purposes posing demonstrable security risks that clouds can aptly eliminate.

Clouds also help in extracting maximum value from the data received since not all data needs to go to the same applications all the time, but the right data needs to get to the correct applications at the right time. Clouds can help in managing data across all environments including edge, data center, private, public, hybrid clouds and the billions of connected devices being added to the network.
Thus, a well-built cloud platform can offer a cohesive, single-window view with quick scalability that enables quicker processing of the data at the source for faster and more accurate results.

Well, we reserved the biggest benefit for the ending note! Clouds can enable operations cost reduction in Smart Cities. A city is not a smart one until it utilizes its resources optimally and that also includes capital.

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A city is not a smart one until it utilizes its resources optimally and that also includes capital. For more information, Visit us at: smart city architecture AND smart cities in India

Inter-connectivity and the Internet of Things

Introduction

Internet of Things (IoT) is a term coined by Kevin Ashton, executive director of the Auto-ID Center, in 1999; but it is only since the last few years that IoT has become a big and inseparable part of the world of Internet and technology. It has taken inter connectivity to the next level by independently interconnecting devices and not just people through devices. Digitization connected people and systems, but IoT connects our belongings in a seamless fashion to alter the way we live and the world as we know it.

IoT is now embedding itself in not just our lives but our culture as well. For example, you can sync your workouts on your smartphone, change the temperature of your home from the airport, update your navigation maps from your garage, monitor pollution levels and weather from your couch and the instances can just go on. Basically, you can interact with a huge variety of devices opening up the possibility of interconnecting anything from the simple to the complex. It literally means that you can now remotely control, monitor and sense just about everything.

Defining IoT

But what exactly is IoT? It is basically an elaborate network of interconnected objects, mainly devices, as well as people, all linked to the internet and interacting with each other, exchanging data through sensors and embedded circuits.

According to research giant Gartner, by 2020 IoT will comprise 26 billion devices, from 4.9 billion in 2015. The McKinsey Global Institute predicts IoT could have a total economic impact of up to $11 trillion by 2025. With all this projected growth, it seems like civilization is on the cusp of an IoT tsunami.

IoT Impact

IoT has already changed the way we live. In several countries products have transformed into products-as-a-service with connected homes and industrial machinery, appliances, etc. In developing nations like India, the concept of Smart Cities has been introduced where devices and the data they emit is expected to make buildings, electricity, public safety, transportation, education, water and waste management, etc. more interconnected and smart.

The advantages of IoT are varied and abundant. Increased productivity, better and smarter business operations, better decision-making due to data and expansion for almost any business are some of the primary advantages. For businesses, IoT enablement will eventually become a must considering the continuous refinement and upgrading of the business model, products, service and customer experience due to largescale data analysis and related insights.

However, it will also mean that infrastructure will need better monitoring and security will become the main point of contention.

Cyber Security

More devices and increased networking means more risks of cybersecurity, hacking and privacy concerns. Remember the big hack of US shopping chain Target wherein personal information including 40 million debit and credit card numbers of 70 million people was stolen? The entire theft was possible as hackers gained access to the shopping chain’s network via the internet-connected HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems. 

According to many experts, the current IoT systems are being built with too little regard for security. IoT will have be built like IT systems with best security practices including employing a risk-based approach, regular software updates, regular backups, multi-factor authentication, privileged user monitoring, etc.

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The current IoT systems are being built with too little regard for security. For more information, visit us at: IoT cloud AND IoT service providers