Move over web 2.0, AJAX, flat design and NoSQL, there is a new buzzword in town that goes by the name of The Internet of Things or as it is commonly known on every tech blog as: IoT.
Wait, what is The Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things is essentially buzzword speak for devices and switches that can talk to each other without human intervention. Smart sensors and applications that share data with each other automatically, states are shared and data is used to determine actions and outcomes. Anything with a switch will eventually be connected, it does pose some security concerns, but that is for another time.
Some examples of The Internet of Things:
- It’s cold outside and you’re almost home. Your car tells your home you’re almost there (based off of your GPS coordinates) and turns the heating on so the house is nice and warm for your arrival.
- Your alarm clock screams at you to wake up. It tells your coffee machine you’re awake and starts heating up some coffee for you.
- You are stuck in traffic, your phone already knows you have a meeting pencilled in your calendar and sends an email notifying the other person you are late and your approximate arrival time. It will recalculate your route for the most non-trafficked efficient route to your destination.
- Your office printer knows it is running low on ink and automatically orders more (this is already a thing, but a perfect example of IoT)
With all of this data being captured and processed, it means an industry standard for this type of thing will emerge or already has emerged. The Internet of Things isn’t even a new premise, devices that are connected and share state have been a thing for a while now, it’s only new applications IoT is finding itself being applied to and albeit rather more advanced applications.
The Takeover: Part 1
As the trend of Internet of Things kicks off into top gear, there is one technology poised to take centre stage: Node.js.
Because of Nodes simplistic nature and how easy it is to build API’s with it (IoT is based on the premise of API’s), we already seeing Node being picked as the defacto choice.
Not only is Node great at being used as an API endpoint, it also scales very nicely even on economy hardware because it has less overhead than other server side languages competing in the same space. This means it is more cost-effective and because you write applications in Javascript it means the front-end and back-end share a universal language lowering the barrier to entry.
The Takeover: Part 2
There is also another piece of technology poised to take sidekick status: MongoDB. This NoSQL database by 10gen has one of the best marketing teams behind it. There is a good chance you have a MongoDB mug or know of someone who does.
It has infiltrated the enterprise already and it is often the defacto choice for most people looking for a NoSQL database. There are alternatives that are more free, but the paid support makes MongoDB an often picked choice by a lot of companies.
Node and Mongo work extremely well together and will be at the forefront of The Internet of Things trend movement for some time to come.
