Book Image

Internet of Things for Architects

By : Perry Lea
Book Image

Internet of Things for Architects

By: Perry Lea

Overview of this book

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the fastest growing technology market. Industries are embracing IoT technologies to improve operational expenses, product life, and people's well-being. An architectural guide is necessary if you want to traverse the spectrum of technologies needed to build a successful IoT system, whether that's a single device or millions of devices. This book encompasses the entire spectrum of IoT solutions, from sensors to the cloud. We start by examining modern sensor systems and focus on their power and functionality. After that, we dive deep into communication theory, paying close attention to near-range PAN, including the new Bluetooth® 5.0 specification and mesh networks. Then, we explore IP-based communication in LAN and WAN, including 802.11ah, 5G LTE cellular, Sigfox, and LoRaWAN. Next, we cover edge routing and gateways and their role in fog computing, as well as the messaging protocols of MQTT and CoAP. With the data now in internet form, you'll get an understanding of cloud and fog architectures, including the OpenFog standards. We wrap up the analytics portion of the book with the application of statistical analysis, complex event processing, and deep learning models. Finally, we conclude by providing a holistic view of the IoT security stack and the anatomical details of IoT exploits while countering them with software defined perimeters and blockchains.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Free Chapter
1
The IoT Story

Chapter 4. Communications and Information Theory

The IoT is more than simply the data from a sensor. We must first understand and architect the transport of moving sensor data from the remotest places on Earth to the cloud. There are a significant number of technologies and data paths to move data, and a bulk of the material in this book will investigate the aspects, constraints, and comparisons of communication choices for the architect.

We begin the WAN discussion with a review of wireless RF signals and the contributing factors that impact signal quality, limitations, interference, models, bandwidth, and range. There are many WAN communication protocols to choose from in different bands, and the architect must understand the pros and cons of choosing one radio spectrum over the other. 

The following graphic helps delineate the various range and data rates for wireless protocols we will cover in later chapters. WPAN is often used with other near-range communication acronyms such as wireless...