Smart Advice from VDC Research on How to Reduce Risk of IoT Obsolescence

The Internet of Things offers the promise of enabling literally billions of items - from pallets of inventory to industrial machinery - to be connected to the Internet and send and receive information about their performance, status and more that can improve utility and/or performance.

While those capabilities will change the way users interact with and experience those things, the addition of IoT capabilities will add a new element of technology risk that could cause companies and their customers real problems, as rapidly changing IoT technology leaves existing products in the field obsolete.

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ISo warn Steve Hoffenberg and Chris Rommel of analyst firm VDC Research, in a recent report titled "The Internet of Prematurely Obsolescent Things."

"We're not just talking about aging equipment in place today that might get yanked out of service early to make way for new connected things," VDC notes. "We're talking about brand-new smart-connected things being sold and installed today that will have shorter lives than their predecessors precisely because they are smart and connected."

VDC points out the comments from the CEO of Swiss watchmaker Tissot whein the company announced its new $1000 Smart-Touch, the company's first full-blown smartwatch. The CEO described one of the Smart-Touch's advantages over existing smartwatches as "the fact the watch would continue to function as a normal watch once the connected technology [becomes]outdated."

VDC observes that "Here is a product that won't even begin shipping until Q4 of 2016, and the manufacturer's senior executive is making an unintentionally backhanded compliment about its connectivity becoming obsolete."

There are a number of areas where IoT capabilities can becomes obsolete, VFC says. Those include:

Communications Obsolescence: VDC cites the loss of Layer 1 and Layer 2 connectivity as perhaps the greatest risk to connected devices because without connectivity they lose whatever advantages they had over non-connected devices. For example, every product in the field today containing an embedded 2G cellular modem risks instant obsolescence when many 2G networks are shut down by carriers in late 2016 or early 2017. Even some 3G networks are slated for shutdown in the next few years.

"And the risks don't apply just to long-range communications," VDC notes. "Can anyone guarantee that Bluetooth or ZigBee or Z-Wave or Thread or even 802.11 (Wi-Fi) will still be in use in 2030?"

Protocol Obsolescence: The IoT already has an abundance of messaging protocols (e.g. AMQP, CoAP,DDS, HTTP, MQTT, XMPP), and interoperability protocols (e.g. AllJoyn and IoTivity), and not all of them may survive for the long haul, VDC says.

Firmware/Software Obsolescence: VDC says that even assuming that IoT products are designed with firmware/software upgrade capabilities (which is not a universally valid assumption), the risk is that OEMs will only continue to issue upgrades and patches for a limited time. "It's not financially feasible to support firmware/software development indefinitely," VDC notes.

Security Obsolescence: Current approaches to security protocols are likely to become obsolete over time, posing risks of device hacking.

Chip Obsolescence: Over time, chips will fail, and as years pass it may not be possible to find exact replacements for devices in the field.

VDC notes that while general computer products obviously become obsolete in a few years the data has generally been preserved elsewhere, and new machines can easily access the stores data. But "IoT is more about the devices. If a physical IoT device is inaccessible for any reason, its functionality can't necessarily be preserved or replicated by copying its data to a new system."

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All this is complicated by the fact that many IoT-enabled "things" will have long lifecycles, often much longer than the IoT technology they were initially shipped with.

So what to do? VDC offers the following recommendations:

Use Modular Communications Technology: VDC says vendors such as Sierra Wireless and Telit offer cellular modules that can be swapped out with others using the same pin-outs and form factors, so that as communications technology evolves, new modules can be installed in existing devices. Similarly, replaceable communications modules for short range wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and ZigBee are available from vendors such as Connect One and Digi.

Plan at the Outset for Firmware/Software Updates: VDC notes that "Simply put, it would be unwise to design nearly any IoT product without having plans in place to develop and securely deploy updates for it. This needs to be taken into account early in product development, because the updating process may require memory buffers or other methods of temporarily storing firmware/software so it can be downloaded independently of the installation process, as well as a failsafe method of reverting to a prior version in the event of a catastrophic bug or hack."

Leverage IoT Cloud Platforms: The more of a product's functionality that can be offloaded to and handled by IoT Cloud platforms, the less device functionality is reliant on the embedded firmware/software, reducing the instances when field updates are needed, VDC notes.

That said, "This is not to say that all device data should be sent to the Cloud, as the quantity and/or latency may be too high," VCD notes, adding that "Intelligent gateways and other intermediary computing systems at or near the edge can serve to pre-filter the data and initiate actions that don't require Cloud participation."

Of course, Cloud IoT platforms themselves may become obsolete, be acquired, or go out of business, so VDC says "the important point is to use a vendor with a large enough base of customers that in the unlikely event the platform becomes on the verge of dissolution, someone - either another vendor or a group of users - will develop a method of migrating the data and services to another platform."

VDC says it does not recommend that companies build their own IoT Cloud platform to eliminate this vendor risk, because "the resource requirements to develop, maintain, and support the platform are likely to outweigh the business advantages."

Leverage Gateways: VDC says gateways can enable older systems to securely interact with newer ones by translating messaging protocols and physical interfaces, and by performing firewall functions. Gateways can also be updated to handle future protocols and security needs.
"Gateways can play an essential role in preventing premature obsolescence for many type of connected things," DDC notes.

Open the Code: This won't work for all scenarios, but VDC says that "OEMs in many markets could at least agree with their customers that if they stop maintaining the code for a product, they will make the code available to the customers," could prolong the software on their own.

In conclusion, VDC says that "Given that every product has a finite lifespan, the Internet of Obsolescent Things is inevitable, but by thinking ahead, OEMs and customers can help prevent it from becoming the Internet of Prematurely Obsolescent Things."

Good advice. SCDigest will note that some of these tactics could add extra costs to current IoT system deployments. Will companies be willing to spend a more now to avoid obsolescence years down the road? There will probably be many answers to that question.

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