Tutorial on M2M
Let me start with a quote from Ivan, Seidenberg, CEO Verizon, "We believe that as the two great megatrends of mobility and the Internet come together, the next wave of growth will come from a whole new generation of devices, applications, and services". (To get a hard copy of this tutorial, visit Sukrut Systems website).
This view is shared by major industry leaders, across ISP , IT/ITES as well in the devices industry. The M2M industry is growing at a CAGR of 5% - 34% across various business domains. The tutorial has been divided in the following section for better understanding;
Introduction to M2M as a technology
M2M Market Drivers
Essential Functions
Problems that exist in today’ M2M Networks
Developing FCAPS for M2M
Generic M2M network
Concluding Remarks
Before jumping to any of the above, lets talk about the evolution of M2M technology expected in next 15-20 years. This can be vaguely divided in the following three major categories with respect to time;
2004 to 2012:Technology Trigger and market emergence
- Customized solutions for specific industries
- B2B services, vertical solutions of selective markets
- More focus on wireless, Mobile ISPs
- Innovative business models for enterprises
- Unstructured market growth based on hype and hope
2010 to 2018: Transition Phase
- Standardization and organic growth of the market based on reality and market feedback of stage first stage
- Vast applications of M2M, growth of mature technologies and brand emergence
- Growth of inter-operable enterprise M2M solutions, independence from ISP, emergence of MSPs (M2M service providers)
- Horizontal expansion of the markets
- Evolution of B2C services models, challenging B2B service models in terms of revenue
2015 onwards: Advance stage
- Fewer established brands, Mature and creation of high entry barrier for new MSPs
- Growth of disruptive business model
- Market consolidation with M&A and stabilization
Introduction to M2M as a technology
M2M has been a general term to describe all aspects of machine-to-machine communication, speciffically for the purpose of management and control of assets and devices. The driving force was to improve efficiency of the devices and asset movement monitoring by way of GPS, asset health information by way of different sensing parameters and generate more service oriented systems then enterprise solutions for recurring revenue.
The proprietary communication systems are far gone based on RF and new IP enabled systems are quickly replacing them due to the scalability and seamless connectivity that IP world provides with no further need of limited and expensive RF engineering solutions.
Over the past several years, many solutions have been suggested for M2M space, but they were either fragmented, targeted to a particular segment of devices/assets or limited by their scalability. It is to be understood that device management is specific by nature and custom solutions need to be provided, however the system architecture can be generic with sufficient extensibility options for customized solution.
M2M Market Drivers
Few identified ones, to tell you how long the list is already.. :-)1. Asset Tracking & transportation
2. Salesforce / workforce monitoring & control
3. Environmental monitoring
4. HVAC and refrigeration
5. Telematics
6. Insurance
7. Consumer and Retail market
8. Building automation
9. Medical & healthcare domain
10. Energy
11. Transport
12. Industrial automation
13. Supply chain management
14. Diagnostics
15. Enterprise systems
16. Middleware
17. Infrastructure domain
18. RFID
19. E-governance
20. Robotics
21. Disaster Management
22. Location based services
23. Remote data collection
24. Security systems
25. Remote utility sub-metering and business applications
26. Vendor managed inventory
27. Financial Services
28. Vending machines
29. Gaming machines
30. Escalators and elevators
31. Industrial monitoring
32. Ticketing systems
33. Domestic appliances
34. …
Essential Functions
Lets look at the major function that a device management and/or generic machine-to-machine system deployed in the field should have. Here are the main requirements;
1. Communication
Seamless connectivity to be provided for data transfer from the devices to the central management database
2. Database
Device activity log at the central location for managing and controlling the device network
3. Alarm Processing
Analyses data collected for alarm exceptions and escalation
4. Notification
Notify escalation authorities by way of EMS alarm notification, SMS and/or email
5. BI and Reporting
Customized reports through for decision making authorities. Provide data/information in terms of excel sheets or charts for the business use of optimized administration and operation.
6. Configuration
One step configuration of all devices from the central location.
7. System/asset Security
By way of tracking and health monitoring of assets under consideration.
8. Authentication
Administrator / Operator / Customer
Problems that exist in today’s M2M Networks
In order to best find the remote device management successes, it is useful to first take a look at the barriers that have kept some from realizing the dream.
- Reaching the device
GSM/GPRS are prominently used for M2M applications and it is well known that running wires has always been a nuisance, except where the wires are already in place. However the complexities of interference, range and configuration are other issues with wireless. In countries like India and China, stable GPRS connections at every site have to be tested before the installation. Also, if wires are present, they should definitely be preferred over the wireless options.
- End-to-end application connectivity
The absence of common standards makes it difficult. Protocols, addressing and routing mechanisms that enable communication between the device and the necessary application must be defined.
- Semi-intelligent device
Intelligent devices may collect data, take local decisions and raise the alarm only in case if the situation goes out of the self-healing intelligence these devices have been provided with. However, this means a huge cost, both for the development as well as per unit in production.
The device can have limited intelligence where physical stimulus can be decision makers while the rest of the intelligence can be left to the central location or to the escalation authorities. This is a better way to go for cost effective, low CAPEX M2M deployment.
- Presentation of the data
Presentation of data requires the creation of the information out of the database and provide important inputs to Business Intelligence. The BI can further be integrated with existing CRM and ERP solutions.
Developing FCAPS for M2M
FCAPS is a well known acronym in the standardized sections of telecom industry. A similar approach is required while developing next generation, inter-operable M2M systems. It stands for Fault, Configuration, Accounting/Administration, Performance and Security. A small overview is due here with respect to the M2M segment.
- Fault management
The goals of fault management are to recognize, isolate, correct and log faults that occur in the network. Furthermore, it uses trend analysis to predict errors so that the network is always available. This can be established by monitoring concerned parameters for abnormal behavior.
- Configuration management
The goals of configuration management include:
o To gather and store configurations from network devices (this can be done locally or remotely, depending on the device being enough intelligent).
o To simplify the configuration of the device
o To track changes which are made to the configuration
o To configure ('provision') circuits or paths through non-switched networks
- Accounting and/or Administration
Accounting is often referred to as billing management. The goal is to gather usage statistics for users. Using the statistics the users can be billed and usage quota can be enforced.
The goals of administration are to administer the set of authorized users by establishing users, passwords, and permissions, and to administer the operations of the device such as by performing backup and synchronization.
- Performance management
It is used to determine the efficiency of the current network. The network performance addresses the throughput, battery utilization, error rates and response time areas. Performance trends can indicate capacity or reliability issues before they become service affecting. Performance thresholds are configurable and can be set in order to trigger an alarm.
- Security management
Security management is the process of controlling access to assets in the network. Data security can be achieved mainly with authentication and encryption at the OS and DBMS access control settings.
Generic M2M network
Generic M2M network has following four components in general, as shown in figure 1;
1. Device or Sensor network
This is the last mile connectivity with the end devices from where data is gathered and presented in step 4. This network can either be connected either over modbus over RS232/422/485 or TCP, Satellite Network, Home Area Network (HAN)/Personal Area Network (PAN) over Bluetooth or RF, ZigBee, or any other proprietary network technology in either star or mesh topology. These are connected through a router back to a programmable gateway device, which in most cases can be unmanaged node or in specific cases managed ones. In the simplest case, the device network can be rolled up back into the gateway, specifically on sparse deployment of the devices.
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2. Communication Interface
Most popular communication network is the GSM/GPRS however any of the shown communication technology can be used. In remote areas, in sea satellite communication is preferred and in fixed locations where wired connectivity is available, a wired connectivity is preferred over the wireless for the reason of the stability of the signal and quality of service (QoS) of the Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
3. Database Servers
SQL is the most popular database used in most of the cases, however Oracle and other databases are also becoming popular. Here data is stored at given intervals. It is associated with a management server where the device management and configuration & upgrade is taken care of either by way of a tiny webserver at the device level or CLI/TFTP interface.
4. Customer Access
Customer access is either by way of SMS or mobile applications, desktop application or a application server for B2B services. Application server provides the business application associated with the end devices. If the end devices are managed and intelligent, this application server can also provide access to the device for its configuration/upgrade as applicable remotely.
Concluding Remarks
It’s a fact of today that M2M is here to stay and its expanding in enterprise market inorganically. It is still disruptive and there are doubts on what M2M can deliver. A hype is created by companies entering in this domain and lot of companies have died under the heavy expectation they have built around M2M due to its limitation as of today. The bottleneck can appear in any of the four stages mentioned above, though most of today’s installations are facing issues in the communication link and absence of mature business apps.
The legacy devices with wired connectivity have already been integrated and are functioning well in the business community. Web-connectivity and proof-of-concept have been welcomed by selective businesses and they are expanding. GPS based tracking is one of the most popular business application as of now and other apps are in the coming. However, there are still lot of gaps and lack of standards is a hindrance for the expansion of the market.
On one hand, lack of standards is giving space for small companies to come up and make money, it is also hindering the new business applications to come up due to the constraints of inter-operability across multiple ISPs. The standardization of M2M technology is at the infancy and once they are in place, they will enable the technology to move to the transition stage as mentioned in Section 1.
Evolution of intelligent devices will further fuel the growth of 2nd stage and B2C services will be launched by ISPs. This is where MSPs (M2M services providers) will mark their presence in the business landscape. The M2M market will finally find its way through to the third stage.
Summarizing all this, there is a tremendous scope of business in this arena. It is important to devise and adopt the right strategy at an early stage. There is indeed a large but competitive space available for those who are ready to go full swing in the race and win a bigger chunk of business as they grow with the evolving businesses in this M2M space.
Disclaimer: The quotations made in this tutorial are based on information generally available to the public from sources believed to be reliable. No representation is made that it is timely, accurate or complete.
