Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT companies are businesses that facilitate the convergence of the digital and physical worlds. They include developers, manufacturers and suppliers of IoT networking equipment, IoT devices, embedded systems as well as software infrastructure providers, system integrators, application development companies, and device/connectivity management companies. The Internet of Things is a network of physical objects or devices that can communicate and interoperate through the IP (Internet Protocol) stack. The network architecture typically includes gateways that acts as a protocol convertor and data router to provide a bridge between the IoT devices and the network server. Gateways are connected to the standard IP network with a network server which provides the computing power to process the enormous amounts of data generated from IoT devices. An IoT platform orchestrates interactions between different layers of an IoT technology stack.

An IoT platform is a package of software components that perform as a mediator between the hardware and application layers of the IoT technology stack. It is used to address the requirements for IoT device connectivity, device management, data management, application development and enablement, security management, etc. While IoT provides an interface between the physical and digital world over existing network infrastructure, IoT platforms are the central backbone of the overall IoT infrastructure that facilitates and orchestrates data exchange between heterogeneous IoT devices and IoT applications through the IP (Internet Protocol) stack.