IoTium
Developing Smart City with IoT Network Infrastructure

Most of our nation’s critical infrastructure-power grids, rail and transportation systems, city lighting systems, refineries, oilrigs, pipelines, building automation systems were built a long time ago. With IoT in the picture now, there is a need to connect these entities to the internet to tap into their potential. There is though a glitch in the path of achieving this—security! Also, there is a need for IoT network infrastructure that supports dynamically changeable policy-based WAN optimization, data brokering, QoS and edge analytics. In addition, in order for Industrial IoT to scale, ease of deployment and management become critical. IoTium has abstracted these complexities through its cloud-managed, easy-to-deploy, software defined IoT network. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, IoTium provides a secure, intelligent, and flexible mid-mile architecture. “To make industrial internet possible, IoTium is developing a multi-tenanted IoT network infrastructure which offers security, QoS, WAN Optimization, service-chaining and edge analytics coupled with zero-touch provisioning and protocol software lifecycle management” begins Ron Victor, CEO at IoTium.

IoTium’s solution can be used for any IoT deployment such as smart cities, smart grids, energy installations, industrial automation, transportation and more. The architecture has two components to it–an iNode and an Orchestrator. The iNode through its security mechanisms protects legacy devices and gateways. The iNode solution is a book-ended solution. Thus, both the data source, and the data sink need an iNode. An iNode at the edge resides on certified third party substrates as chosen by the customer. The iNode in a cloud resides as a virtual machine. The Orchestrator is cloud-based and used for management and control only. “Our solution solves critical issues of IoT deployments including data security, data management, zero-touch provisioning, QoS, Protocol Software Lifecycle management and edge analytics,” says Victor. IoTium thus provides a horizontal, multi-tenanted, plug-and-play, policy-driven network Infrastructure solution eliminating the need for vertical custom-built solutions.

The key difference between the IoTium architecture and any other IoT transport layer architecture today is that the IoTium architecture is an open one. It allows the customer to choose any sensor, any edge gateway substrate, and any cloud/analytics provider to work with and any physical infrastructure to transport the data.

Our network infrastructure software solution solves the critical issues of security, provisioning, WAN optimization, QoS, edge analytics and protocol software adapter lifecycle management for any IoT deployment

Most other architectures today are closed architectures that force the customer to use a particular vendor’s sensor, gateway and analytics platform. In addition, IoTium’s architecture works with and protects age-old legacy brown-field devices and gateways as well as newer green-field devices and gateways. It bridges the two.

A customer in the building automation vertical whose business revolves around providing energy efficiency analytics wanted to minimize costs associated with provisioning their edge gateways. The old way required a truck roll and a technician to get to the site and configure and install the gateway. IoTium’s zero-touch provisioning architecture eliminated the truck roll. Now the customer just courier’s the edge gateway with the IoTium software installed on it. Upon being powered up, it calls the orchestrator, gets authenticated and all its policies are downloaded onto it automatically. The business outcome was a significant reduction in provisioning costs coupled with the fact that the customer can now focus on its core business–providing energy efficiency analytics.

IoTium brings a different approach to fulfill the unique security needs of smart city. “We have a team with deep domain experience and expertise in networking, security, embedded systems and Industrial automation to address the challenges in IoT deployment in smart cities,” concludes Victor.