Book Image

Analytics for the Internet of Things (IoT)

By : Andrew Minteer
5 (1)
Book Image

Analytics for the Internet of Things (IoT)

5 (1)
By: Andrew Minteer

Overview of this book

We start with the perplexing task of extracting value from huge amounts of barely intelligible data. The data takes a convoluted route just to be on the servers for analysis, but insights can emerge through visualization and statistical modeling techniques. You will learn to extract value from IoT big data using multiple analytic techniques. Next we review how IoT devices generate data and how the information travels over networks. You’ll get to know strategies to collect and store the data to optimize the potential for analytics, and strategies to handle data quality concerns. Cloud resources are a great match for IoT analytics, so Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and PTC ThingWorx are reviewed in detail next. Geospatial analytics is then introduced as a way to leverage location information. Combining IoT data with environmental data is also discussed as a way to enhance predictive capability. We’ll also review the economics of IoT analytics and you’ll discover ways to optimize business value. By the end of the book, you’ll know how to handle scale for both data storage and analytics, how Apache Spark can be leveraged to handle scalability, and how R and Python can be used for analytic modeling.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Analyzing data to infer protocol and device characteristics


Back to the number-one rule in IoT analytics:

Never trust data you don't know

.

You need to get to know your data. Just like that new guy you just met, you Google him, ask around about him, and do a criminal background check (we know you do) before agreeing to go to dinner with him.

Here is a step-by-step strategy to start to understand the source of the data:

  1. Draw a picture of the device: Sketch it out or use blueprints if you have them. This is where you make friends with the design engineer and ask her some questions. Draw the key sensors in the place they are located and note the sensor type and any limitations. Ask about any environmental conditions that affect accuracy and note it.
  2. Find out how the device connects to a network: Note the connectivity type on your sketch.
  3. Determine what data messaging protocol the device uses to communicate: Note this on your sketch. A simple example follows:
  1. If you can visit an actual site where the...