Interoperability and performance also trouble IoT developers
Security is a major concern for developers overriding other issues such as interoperability and performance, according to a recent survey.
The study of 528 IoT developers, was conducted by the Eclipse IoT Working Group in partnership with the IEEE IoT and the AGILE-IoT research project, found that nearly half (48.3 percent) identified security as their leading concern. Interoperability and performance were the second and third biggest concerns, with 31.9 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
According to Ian Skerrett, VP of marketing and ecosystem at the Eclipse Foundation, the issue facing IoT developers is one that “needs to be solved”.
“For companies that have deployed a solution today, performance is rising to the third key concern. It is not clear what the performance issues are, but it is something that warrants more investigation,” he said.
The survey also found that nearly half (46 percent) of those polled showed that their company is developing and deploying IoT solutions, and 29 percent said that their company plans to within the next 18 months. This implied that the uptake of IoT technologies is accelerating.
The adoption of HTTP and MQTT as protocols for IoT was also indicated in the survey with 61 percent and 52 percent of survey respondents are stated that they’re using HTTP and MQTT, respectively.
Skerrett said that the success of MQTT is “a testament to IBM’s strategy to standardise MQTT at OASIS and start the Eclipse Paho project. It really is a perfect case study for using open source and open standards to gain broad industry adoption.”
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Linux the OS for IoT developers
Linux dominates IoT as the OS of choice for developers with 73 percent of IoT developers selecting it to run IoT applications on. The next more popular section at 23 percent was No OS/Bare metal. The three most popular programming languages for implementing IoT solutions are Java, C and JavaScript.
Cesare Garlati, chief security strategist at prpl Foundation, told Internet of Business that developers can help by actually securing what they are developing.
“There is little hope in securing something that isn’t one’s own, which is what tends to happen once device is finally assembled – the thought is ‘it works, now let’s try to secure it’.”
“Yes, developers need to make sure that what they are creating works, but importantly we need to be moving to a new mindset where we get developers to think “if it isn’t secure, it doesn’t work.”
Kevin Bocek, VP of security strategy and threat intelligence, Venafi, told Internet of Business that wearables and IoT technology presents a huge opportunity to improve the health of people around the world.
“Yet there is a big risk that cyber-attackers could exploit this technology to hold healthcare providers to ransom, and even harm patients. Developers have to make sure that all these connected devices can be trusted and that means making security measures the number one priority,” he said.
Hank Skorny, SVP IoT at Neustar, told Internet of Business that although IoT is already here, the internet was never built with security in mind; ease of use and convenience were paramount.
“We have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and make security a cornerstone of every IoT device moving forward. From design conception, every IoT device, sensor, and software system needs a multi-tiered security driven approach, including timely patches and updates. Just as important, or perhaps more so, is for security to be an intrinsic part of every network,” he said.
Daryl Miller, VP Engineering at Lantronix, told IoB that interoperability issues need to be thought through from the offset.
“A clear understanding of the use case for a product is essential when it comes to selecting the most appropriate communication means – Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, LORA, SIGFOX or Cellular. And yes, you’ve guessed it, there will be a need to balance connectivity and security needs when making this choice.
“Knowing which devices are compatible with the chosen infrastructure (existing access points, cellular service, frequency bands, platforms, and so forth), and taking regional considerations including regulatory constraints into account will be critical to the success of an IoT deployment,” added Miller.
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