Own Your Custom IoT Solution: Strategy to Choose The Right Platform
Within the industrial manufacturing landscape, one of the most important questions that puts the stakeholders awake at midnight is whether they should invest in IoT applications, and more than that: which IoT adoption strategy is the best fit for their business.
Some of the largest businesses are investing billions in IoT platforms because they know it is the only way to transform their business. For industrial OEMs and Operators choosing how to deliver and deploy enterprise-grade Industrial IoT solutions is nothing short of a strategic choice. What they need is a platform that offers scalability, cyber-security, reliability, and flexibility needed to match the organization’s long-term vision. On the other hand, the platform plan needs to align with business constraints like the availability of “big data” software skills, time-to-market, investment (millions), and risk of failure.
In this article, we examine the four main IIoT Platform options available:
Let's explore each of these options:
1. The Drag and Drop Method: Using Low-Code/RAD Platforms
Building applications using Low-Code/ RAD platforms might look like the best option you can pick at first, but it comes with its own set of disadvantages. Low-code development comes with multiple trade-offs in the form of limited customization (the built-in workflows don’t let them build the solutions they really want), portability (on-premises deployments are not possible), IP ownership (most of the application is configuration only with nominal original IP added), and Cybersecurity (there is limited to no controls to manage the security of what “Low-Code Platform’s” actual code elements are added). With these restrictions, even when these platforms are able to make a space in the ecosystem, choosing a Low-Code/RAD platform becomes a poor choice for enterprise-grade solutions in the long run.
Pros: Less complex and you can build applications at less cost compared to other methods.
Cons: Scalability restraints, limited customization, and limitations with IP ownership.
2. IoTaaS: The Next Alternative
For OEMs, the next alternative is using IoTaaS components to build their own custom IoT solutions.
Since the IoTaaS is a mere collection of services, the real trouble for OEMs is to invest in the skills required for investigating, learning, and constructing an entirely complete featured platform first and then build an Enterprise-grade application on top of that. Creating the application of your dreams using these components just does not add up if you do not have the budget and abundant time in hand. Even when you get to own the services, you still have a ton of work to do. Once you have an overall architecture that accounts for cyber-security, identity management, device connections and data transformation, data storage management, analytics functions, user interface front ends, scalability, disaster recovery, and much more, this is just the start of building a custom IoT solution. Now comes the part where you develop the application. To achieve this, you need a skilled group of professionals who are aligned with the technological IoT trends. That said, building a custom solution with this approach is only possible for organizations with abundant investing capabilities.
Pros: Shorter implementation cycles, lower risks and time savings.
Cons: Increased cost over time and skill shortages.
3. Building From the Scratch: The Traditional Method
For businesses with larger digital (software) teams and comparatively high technology competency, building an IoT solution from scratch might sound promising. But the process is time-consuming (2-3 years), costly (4-5 Millions), and complex.
Some of the in-house IoT platforms at large-scale OEMs are built over the years, after multiple revisions, integrating cutting-edge technology, and spending millions of dollars. With technology already invading the manufacturing landscape, it is now even more difficult to build a solution as per your business needs from scratch. When the demand of time is to build custom IoT solutions that are user-friendly, scalable, customizable, and aligns with the language of Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence, the prerequisite is even more challenging. You need an IoT product team of architects, developers, QA testers, Data modelers, and AI practitioners to create intelligent systems capable of making data-driven decisions. Once you have all this in place, your IoT solution should also have the ecosystem readiness to perform regular health checks of your assets.
To sum it up, with the traditional approach you build what you need, own the IP, and future-proof your solution but with the highest risk of failure, TTM (Time to Market), and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
Pros: You own the IP, scale as per your business needs, and future-proof your solutions for tech advancements.
Cons: Cost-heavy, increased TTM, and TCO.
4. The Best Fit: Application Enablement Platform
To support your customer’s mission, you need to choose the AEP method, here’s why:
AEP provides not only a coherent platform that has built-in scalability, cyber-security, and reliability but also has the tools and workflows that simplify the process of building enterprise-grade and commercial-ready applications. A fully functional Platform Core coupled with a working “Catalyst Application” that includes powerful and extensive IIoT functionality with a deep set of services, workflows, and documentation for customization is the need of the hour for industrial OEMs. From reliable connectivity, IoT data integration to effective asset lifecycle management, choosing an Application Enablement Platform does it all for you.
If you want to build a robust IoT ecosystem, you need to have a holistic approach that not just caters to one stage but encompasses every stage of the asset lifecycle management (ALM). With an efficient ALM, you can ensure seamless provisioning, configuration, security, and decommissioning of your assets.
What’s more in it for you?
Flex83 is a category of ONE platform that lets you to own your application IP, customize as per your business needs, and scale from a few thousand devices to millions without compromising on security, cost, and deployment success (99.99% SLA). You can tailor your application to best fit your use-case and gain competitive advantage. And you achieve all this 6x TCO savings and 10x TTM.
Pros: Competitive edge, reduced TTM and TCO, and Zero technical debt.
A Brief Comparison
The “Spider-Chart” below attempts to preview the difference between these alternatives.
While the chart largely speaks for itself, a few key points are worth mentioning.
Bridging the Gap to Existing Systems and Prior Investments
Many OEMs and Enterprises have already made significant investments in Industrial IoT. Regardless of the relative success of these investments – from the POV of results’ velocity, cost, TTM, and TCO perspective – they are very reluctant to make a change. Spending huge amounts of money on solutions that do not cater to your customers is not the finest choice. With today’s modern AEP methodology, it is no longer necessary to limit the IIoT promise.
Flex Platform makes it easy to interwork with your existing systems, and also to quickly migrate logic from poorly performing systems into a modern framework. In short, there is no longer a reason to feel “locked in” with ineffective and non-strategic investments.
Conclusion
Simplifying your IoT adoption journey is in your hands. All you have to do is choose the alternative that aligns with your needs. While you can depend on the three alternatives (Low code/RAD, IoTaaS, and Traditional), you can always have the freedom from suspicion with an Application Enablement Platform’s fail-proof methodology.