Written by Chris Howard, technology writer on behalf of PTC.

In the past few years, two of the most frequently mentioned technologies are Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Thanks to the necessity to use big data analytics both these technologies have become a necessity, not just a nice innovation.

During a certain period of time, these two technologies have advanced and developed separately, but in the end, it showed up that they fulfil each other perfectly.

The connection between IoT and Big Data present an ideal unity between these two technologies. Of course, their ongoing development increases our expectations drastically.

IoT (Internet Of Things): What is it?

IoT or the Internet of Things can be described as a system of physical objects mutually connected over the Internet.

If you are wondering what the word ‘thing’ means in this case, it is practically a device that has an assigned IP address. And those ‘things’ collect and transfer data all over the internet thanks to integrated technology.

Big Data: What is it?

We can say that Big data represents a set of unstructured, structured, semi-structured data that is being collected by organisations which are then being used in advanced analytics applications like machine learning projects or predictive modelling.

According to several studies, it is predicted that the use of IoT will generate 4.4 trillion GBs in 2020. Of course, it is expected for this figure to be higher in the following years.

One of the greatest challenges IoT has to deal with is Big Data, or to be more precise, with reading, exploiting, and transmitting this data within precise timeframes.

IoT Data: How it is generated?

IoT or more precisely IoT devices, gather tons of data almost in real time. This data contains many different pieces of information, for example, whether something is being automated or performed manually.

The IoT sensors can also gather data based on their status (whether something is available or not, turned on or off, and so on), then based on location (gathers data about the movement of objects and people anywhere in the world) and finally based on automation (gathers data about automated systems and operations).

After these sensors gather the data they send it further for a detailed analysis.

The role of Big Data in the Internet of Things

Big Data must be able to handle reading, exploiting, and transmitting this IoT data in real-time and on top of everything it has to optimise the use of IoT. In order to do this, Big Data must:

• Collect the IoT-generated data based on volume, speed, and variety.
• Store the data in its database
• Use complex analytic systems to analyse data
• Implement reports for the data being analysed.

When it comes to efficiency in data processing Big Data is going to play an important role there. At the same time, it will make it possible for IoT developers to make these tools even better and well optimised.

The interaction of IoT and Big Data

When we speak about the interaction between IoT and Big Data we can define it as bidirectional. IoT has the potential to improve Big Data significantly.

For example, if the importance of IoT in everyday life increases the developers will ask for more capacity of Big data and this business will grow with this demand.

Therefore, data storage technologies will have to be improved in order to develop systems that can easily process even more data. As a result of this interaction between Big Data and IoT, both areas will have the option to simultaneously advance in terms of technology

The connection between IoT and Big Data

The way businesses add value is changed by IoT and Big Data analytics because a huge amount of useful information is being extracted from data and as a result, those businesses have much better insights.

As the data storage demands increase, businesses take advantage of big data cloud storage. As a result, the cost of implementation is drastically reduced.

To better understand IoT and Big Data and why they work well together we need to understand that they are two completely separate solutions.

When a business requires a huge amount of data to be extracted for a specific purpose IoT is the source of that. This data can then be analysed by Big Data in order to get the required information.

When it comes to Big data, its job isn’t just real-time processing of huge amounts of information, but also storing that information.

Data collection would be another difference and it indicates how the IoT and Big Data collaborate.

On one side Big Data gathers data generated from human behaviour and based on it, makes predictions and discovers patterns in the behaviour.

On the other hand, machines generate the IoT data with the purpose of optimising their performance and determining predictive care.

When you combine these two they can reveal hidden correlations based on the input. Besides that, they can determine some unidentified patterns and discover new trends.

As you can see the IoT and Big Data are closely connected and as IoT develops rapidly, the Big Data solutions have to keep up with it.

Based on that businesses will have to upgrade their systems and technologies if they want to meet this increasing demand.

In the end, we have to say that the goals of Big Data and IoT are pretty much the same and they depend on one another. This allows them to transform or convert data into useful business information. With the ongoing development of Big data and IoT certain industries (transportation, automotive and shipping) will definitely enjoy the benefits of these two technologies.

The combination of Big Data analytics and the real-time IoT insights gives a clearer and more detailed picture of how a specific company has performed over a specific period of time.

Based on this, the analytics process will improve thanks to the insights gained from these two technologies, the efficiency will increase, the costs will be reduced and the decision making will be much easier.

In conclusion

Based on the details presented in this article we have to agree that Big Data and IoT work together perfectly well in bringing more results. One without the other will never reach its full potential.

The combination of these two technologies will definitely do its job in creating a world that is smartly connected, the decision-making processes will be much more simple and easier and the world around us, especially the digital one will be better.

[Image – Photo by Maximalfocus on Unsplash]