Interview
to deliver a full IoT vision was to pull people from every part of their business — from their data centre, server division, consulting division, security division, etc. Until then they hadn’t clicked that they needed to bring a huge breadth of different skills together in order to realise that vision and take their products to market.”
As the world of IoT develops and we see
more and more connected devices, having embedded software development as a skill within the team is increasingly important. Mike explains: “Depending on the nature of the hardware you are looking at, software development skills become more difficult when you get into areas like sensors and actuators, which are very small and may not run a full operating system. I think these kinds of technologies still rely on traditional embedded skills which are fairly scarce and niche — but we are seeing things such as the Raspberry Pi really helping people with this.” “One of the things that we are doing with Ubuntu is enabling developers to bring the same technologies that they have been developing on the web down to an IoT device. This will help with some of the skills challenges; it still requires a certain degree of skill but it avoids developers having to retrain. Someone who is used to using Node.js, Python, JavaScript, etc., can now get that code easily working on a more capable embedded IoT device and I think that will definitely help.” Changing skills requirements will have
an effect on the electronics industry. Mike explains: “I think this is one of those situations where we see software becoming more and more important.
Earlier this year at Mobile World Congress we used the strapline ‘Software-defined everything’ — what we mean by that is that as hardware becomes more commoditised and less specialised the value therefore is increasingly in the software. The hardware is still important but software becomes the defining point where one can differentiate. You really need good software engineers and I think that’s becoming more and more important. I saw this in my previous job working with connected cars where you had your typical electrical engineering function really being challenged by the amount of software needed to go in a car. And I think it’s the same challenge across all industries.” “Achieving savings from an increasingly
software-defined approach relies on support from design engineers. Rather than focusing solely on the development of a standalone piece of IoT hardware, today’s engineers must instead start seeing their hardware designs as little more than a base upon which increasingly complex software- defined functions can be managed and run. Engineers must start to develop their designs with a far greater degree of flexibility in mind. Rather than defining strict functionality at the hardware level, they must be more willing to create a multi- function blank canvas upon which software engineers can develop and build.” As IoT devices grow ever more software- defined, engineers must also develop their devices not only to suit the needs of today’s users, but must also futureproof their designs against a wide variety of potential uses in years to come. Mike explains: “Thanks to the development of IoT app
stores, such as the Ubuntu store, IoT manufacturers, vendors and even consumers now expect their devices to be almost endlessly upgradable. The days of selling a connected device with a single use case in mind are over - the opportunity for driving substantial returns on investment for the IoT is in devices that allow for existing functionalities to be upgraded, and new ones to be installed.” But all this relies on engineers and developers having the skillset to deliver. To overcome this skills gap, Mike believes we need to look at educating more young people before they start their career. He comments: “Covering more skills in universities, colleges and technical colleges is clearly a good thing. I think all forms of higher education are really important, especially in the UK right now. But these things take time and won’t fix the problem quickly.” Mike continues: “I think it’s also about hiring the right skills so figuring out what it is you need and then hiring it in. There is a mixture, obviously you want in house capability but the world is moving so quickly that just purely waiting to develop your own in house capability is unlikely to meet market needs.”
The IoT is still developing and will soon be almost everywhere we look and in everything we use. Mike says: “I think we are going to start seeing more capable IoT devices using edge computing for analytics. Instead of pushing all the data to the cloud or your private data centre, we are going to see more capability put into normal everyday objects. That could be the
monitoring of a refrigeration unit in a supermarket or a point of sale device. “Analytics and big data will blur between being local and being in the cloud. I think this is really important in environmental, operational or technology environments like manufacturing and oil and gas where there is a lot of process control going on and data is flowing around lots of equipment. It could be a production line, it could be monitoring a refinery, all of these things have a huge amount of data. At the moment, that data tends to go back up to data centres but I think there is a great opportunity, that some people are already starting to exploit, by having real-time analytics on the shop floor so business can see trends and understand what is happening much more quickly.”
Mike concludes: “Looking forward,
electronics engineers must refocus not only on the technical benefits of their IoT devices, but also the potential returns that their business could see from these projects. It’s clear that in order for the IoT to prove successful – and provide a high level of return on investment – IoT device manufacturers must start to consider the business potential of their designs at all stages of the development process. From the employees and skillsets they acquire through to the functionalities that their products could adopt in future, as software- defined IoT becomes the new normal, it is not just devices that must become more flexible, but engineers themselves.”
www.canonical.com/ www.ubuntu.com
+44 (0) 1761 233230 |
sales@somersetsolders.com
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
October 2017 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
