The internet has changed. No longer a means of communication but communication device. It is known as Internet of things (IoT). However, there is another concept that comes into play when exploring IoT – the Web of Things (WoT). WoT on the other hand aims at using the world wide web to hold together these IoT devices rather than its predecessor. Hence, more accessibility and interconnectivity among machines can be realized.
Despite this, it’s not a simple process. In fact, numerous challenges and opportunities exist within it.
Barriers in Interoperability
There are many obstacles to building a Web of Things including machine connectivity. Unlike traditional web services, IoT devices come in all shapes and sizes with varying functions. As such; they have different communication protocols as well as data formats hence bringing them together for creating a consistent web across everything becomes difficult.
In improving interoperability between devices developers make use two standards like RDF and HTTP in WoT so that uniform interfaces can be created for IoT devices which will allow any thing on a network to interact seamlessly with others.
Nevertheless, this still remains hard because older equipment might fail support modern protocols thus requiring backward compatibility mechanisms to be set up. Please visit IXON (Germany) for more details.
Security Risks and Privacy Concerns
When considering how much can be attached on network one must think about security risks that follow as well privacy concerns when using it.
It even gets worse from security perspective whereby every connected device becomes an entry point for cybercrimes hence need for strong protection measures across all connected devices since vulnerabilities will be exploited by attackers who seek to compromise your entire network.
Various possible solutions include securing the device itself , encrypting communications over the networks to which they connect, or providing strict access control so that any machine belonging to WoT ecosystem does not expose those so composed .This makes it difficult for the system as a whole to gain trust over those vulnerable elements embedded in those machines.
Scalability and Resource Constraints
What we have now as the internet is also called edge computing. In other words, data processing is done at the source rather than relying on centralized cloud servers. Proven to reduce latency, minimize bandwidth consumption and enhance overall responsiveness of IoT connected devices.
However, doing this for all devices may not always solve everything. Especially when dealing with those that have limited processing power, memory capacity and energy sources.
For keeping the Web of Things scalable and robust though, efficient communication protocols and resource management strategies are still required. However, the use of lightweight messaging systems such as Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT)could help decrease these overheads that come with transmitting data over constrained networks.
