What should I know before developing an app for the internet of things?

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Billions of connected devices streaming volumes of real-time data are what the IoT potential we were all convinced so far. As a step ahead, enterprises have steered their focus from just connected DevOps to hugely dependable DevOps and that 80% of IoT spend shall be taken away by B2B markets.

Let us look at some of the insights that can help you develop better applications for the Internet of Things.

Look out for a ready to ‘Deploy’ platform

With the Internet of Things getting more dominant, enterprises are eager to capitalize through ‘ready to deploy’ platforms so that the average developer does it the development work more comfortably and look beyond conventional developments towards building “The future generation applications.” Such platforms have ingestion and analytics layers embedded while the developer gets to focus on the core SDLC processes.

Leading enterprises such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google have preferred using prebuilt environments than doing everything from scratch by them.

Consider long-term impact over instant goals

Building an Internet of Things application from scratch can be a herculean task. So, if investing time and effort in something, look at a bigger picture and long-term impact. As it comes to mind thinking of Internet of Things, an automated home, behold a bigger picture, like a connected city can be an end goal for the task. Given the fact that IoT devices are no more in their infancy, considering the scalability needs

With already a lot of hearing about the Internet of Things technology, and the technology still being in its infancy, the growth of the technologies and the different forms of the Internet of Things will grow exponentially in the coming years, maybe 5-10 years. So, thinking of your application’s scalability can bring you loads of benefits in the long run. So, just think of it as a resource whose acquisition should be as widespread as possible!

Look into firmware security of the devices

The conventional applications and the IoT applications differ in an aspect that they interact with Things and not humans. So, the firmware used to develop these applications should be secure and regularly update its security frameworks so that any new vulnerabilities detected in the coming time, be treated remotely in the applications and devices, just like antivirus software do.

Also, include the security features for protection of data, thereby, using secure hardware components. While security is a critical issue for DevOps, encryption and authentication details must be included in the apps so that the data is protected against any vulnerabilities or illegal hacking practices.

Understand physical attacks are serious too

The data we transfer to a device is managed and analyzed for further computations on these chips that are installed on these devices. These chips can be, for instance, a GPS chip in a shipping container, or a thermostat on an air conditioner, etc. These chips should be made with physical vulnerabilities kept in mind, like, they should be hard to remove or tamper.

And lastly,

Get the right developers on board

As per HP’s recent study on Insecure IoT applications, DevOps with software development from the hardware vendor were more vulnerable to a security threat than others. That is, due to lack of hands-on knowledge in risk identification, a hardware vendor who doesn’t have expertise with software applications may not be the best choice.

Get the best developers on board. Look out for ‘relevant developers’ and not ‘available developers’ for the project. Don’t ignore organizing cross-training sessions and letting your teams nourish their basics at every level.

While we are steadily marching towards an excited 2020, getting our basics right from the beginning will help negate upon abrupt performance issues at run-time.