Towards a Practical Architecture for the Next Generation Internet of Things

The Internet of Things, or the IoT is a vision for a ubiquitous society wherein people and “Things” are connected in an immersively networked computing environment, with the connected “Things” providing utility to people/enterprises and their digital shadows, through intelligent social and commercial services. Translating this idea to a conceivable reality is a work in progress for more than a decade. Current IoT architectures are predicated on optimistic assumptions on the evolution and deployment of IoT technologies. We believe many of these assumptions will not be met, consequently impeding the practical and sustainable deployment of IoT. In this article, we explore use-cases across different applications domains that can potentially benefit from an IoT infrastructure, and analyze them in the context of an alternative world-view that is more grounded in reality. Despite this more conservative approach, we argue that adopting certain design paradigms when architecting an IoT ecosystem can achieve much of the promised benefits in a practical and sustainable manner.