As businesses discover new use cases and develop the infrastructure to support more IoT applications, the entire Internet of Things continues to evolve. Let’s look at some of the current trends in that evolution.

Table Of Contents

• Top 5 IoT Trends
  1. IoT Cybersecurity Concerns Grow
  2. IoT Advancements In Health Care
  3. 5G Enables More IoT Opportunities
  4. Demand For Specialized IoT Data Management
  5. Bundled IoT For The Enterprise Buyer
• The Future Of IoT
• Bottom Line: IoT Trends

Top 5 IoT Trends

IoT devices can help companies use their data in many ways, including generating, sharing and collecting data throughout their infrastructure. While some companies are leaping into IoT technology, others are more cautious, observing from the sidelines to learn from the experiences of those pioneering IoT.

When looking through these five key trends, keep in mind how IoT devices affect and interact with company infrastructure to solve problems.

1. IoT Cybersecurity Concerns Grow

As new IoT solutions develop quickly, are users being protected from cyber threats and their connected devices? Gabriel Aguiar Noury, robotics product manager at Canonical, which publishes the Ubuntu operating system, believes that as more people gain access to IoT devices and the attack surface grows, IoT companies themselves will need to take responsibility for cybersecurity efforts upfront.

“The IoT market is in a defining stage,” Noury said. “People have adopted more and more IoT devices and connected them to the internet.” At the same time they’re downloading mobile apps to control them while providing passwords and sensitive data without a clear understanding of where they will be stored and how they will be protected—and, in many cases, without even reading the terms and conditions.

“And even more importantly, they’re using devices without checking if they are getting security updates…,” Noury said. “People are not thinking enough about security risks, so it is up to the IoT companies themselves to take control of the situation.”

Ben Goodman, SVP of global business and corporate development at ForgeRock, an access management and identity cloud provider, thinks it’s important that we start thinking of IoT devices as citizens and hold them accountable for the same security and authorization requirements as humans.

“The evolution of IoT security is an increasingly important area to watch,” Goodman said. “Security can no longer be an afterthought prioritized somewhere after connectivity and analytics in the Internet of Things. Organizations need to start treating the ‘things’ in the Internet of Things as first-class citizens.”

Goodman said such a measure would mean that non-human entities are required to register and authenticate and have access granted and revoked, just like humans, helping to ensure oversight and control.

“Doing this for a thing is a unique challenge, because it can’t enter a username or password, answer timely questions, or think for itself,” he said. “However, it represents an incredible opportunity to build a secure network of non-human entities working together securely.”

For more information on IoT and security: Internet of Things (IoT) Security Trends

2. IoT Advancements In Healthcare

The healthcare industry has benefited directly from IoT advancements. Whether it’s support for at-home patient care, medical transportation, or pharmaceutical access, IoT solutions are assisting healthcare professionals with more direct care in situations where they cannot provide affordable or safe hands-on care.

Leon Godwin, principal cloud evangelist for EMEA at Sungard AS, a digital transformation and recovery company, explained that IoT not only makes healthcare more affordable—it also makes care and treatment more accessible and patient-oriented.

“IoT in healthcare will become more prevalent as healthcare providers look to reduce costs and drive better customer experience and engagement,” Godwin said. “This might include advanced sensors that can use light to measure blood pressure, which could be incorporated in watches, smartphones, or standalone devices or apps that can measure caloric intake from smartphone cameras.”

Godwin said that AI is also being used to analyze patient data, genetic information, and blood samples to create new drugs, and after the first experiment using drones to deliver organ transplants across cities happened successfully, rollout is expected more widely.

Jahangir Mohammed, founder and CEO of Twin Health, a digital twin company, thinks that one of the most significant breakthroughs for healthcare and IoT is the ability to constantly monitor health metrics outside of appointments and traditional medical tests.

“Recent innovations in IoT technology are enabling revolutionary advancements in healthcare,” Mohammed said. “Until now, individual health data has been mostly captured at points in time, such as during occasional physician visits or blood labs. As an industry, we lacked the ability to track continuous health data at the individual level at scale.

“Advancements in IoT are shifting this paradigm. Innovations in sensors now make it possible for valuable health information to be continuously collected from individuals.

Mohammed said advancements in AI and Machine Learning, such as digital twin technology and recurrent neural networks, make it possible to conduct real-time analysis and see cause-and-effect relationships within incredibly complex systems.

Neal Shah, CEO of CareYaya, an elder care tech startup, cited a more specific use case for IoT as it relates to supporting elders living at home—a group that suffered from isolation and lack of support during the pandemic.

“I see a lot of trends emerging in IoT innovation for the elderly to live longer at home and avoid institutionalization into a nursing home or assisted living facility,” Shah said. Through research partnerships with university biomedical engineering programs, CareYaya is field testing IoT sensors and devices that help with everything from fall prevention to medication reminders, biometric monitoring of heart rate and blood pressure—even mental health and depression early warning systems through observing trends in wake-up times.

Shah said such IoT innovations will improve safety and monitoring and make it possible for more of the vulnerable elderly population to remain in their own homes instead of moving into assisted living.

For more information on health care in IoT: The Internet of Things (IoT) in Health Care

3. 5G Enables More IoT Opportunities

5G connectivity will make more widespread IoT access possible. Currently, cellular companies and other enterprises are working to make 5G technology available in more areas to support further IoT development.

Bjorn Andersson, senior director of global IoT marketing at Hitachi Vantara, a top-performing IoT and  IT service management company, explained why the next wave of wider 5G access will make all the difference for new IoT use cases and efficiencies.

“With commercial 5G networks already live worldwide, the next wave of 5G expansion will allow organizations to digitize with more mobility, flexibility, reliability, and security,” Andersson said. “Manufacturing plants today must often hardwire all their machines, as Wi-Fi lacks the necessary reliability, bandwidth, or security.”

But 5G delivers the best of two worlds, he said—the flexibility of wireless with the reliability, performance, and security of wired networks. 5G provides enough bandwidth and low latency to have a more flexible impact than a wired network, enabling a whole new set of use cases.

Andersson said 5G will increase the feasibility of distributing massive numbers of small devices that in the aggregate provide enormous value with each bit of data.

“This capacity to rapidly support new apps is happening so early in the deployment cycle that new technologies and infrastructure deployment can happen almost immediately, rather than after decades of soaking it in,” he said. “With its widespread applicability, it will be feasible to deliver 5G even to rural areas and remote facilities far more quickly than with previous Gs.”

For more: Internet of Things (IoT) Software Trends

4. Demand For Specialized IoT Data Management

With its real-time collection of thousands of data points, the IoT solutions strategy focuses heavily on managing metadata about products and services. But the overwhelming amount of data involved means not all IoT developers and users have begun to fully optimize the data they can now access.

Sam Dillard, senior product manager of IoT and edge at InfluxData, a data platform provider for IoT and in-depth analytics use cases, believes that as connected IoT devices expand globally, tech companies will need to find smarter ways to store, manage and analyze the data produced by the Internet of Things.

“All IoT devices generate time-stamped (or time series) data,” Dillard said. “The explosion of this type of data, fueled by the need for more analytics, has accelerated the demand for specialized IoT platforms.”

By 2025, around 60 billion connected devices are projected to be deployed worldwide—the vast majority of which will be connected to IoT platforms, he said. Organizations will have to figure out ways to store the data and make it all sync together seamlessly as IoT deployments continue to scale at a rapid pace.

5. Bundled IoT For The Enterprise Buyer

While the average enterprise buyer might be interested in investing in IoT technology, the initial learning curve can be challenging as IoT developers work to perfect new use cases for users.

Andrew De La Torre, group VP of technology for Oracle Communications at cloud and data management company Oracle, believes that the next big wave of IoT adoption will be in bundled IoT or off-the-shelf IoT solutions that offer user-friendly operational functions and embedded analytics.

Results of a survey of 800 respondents revealed an evolution of priorities in IoT adoption across industries, De La Torre said—most notably, that enterprises are investing in off-the-shelf IoT solutions with a strong desire for connectivity and analytics capabilities built-in.

Because of specific capabilities, commercial off-the-shelf products can extend IoT into other industries thanks to its availability in public marketplaces. When off-the-shelf IoT aligns with industrial needs, it can replace certain components and systems used for general-use practices.

While off-the-shelf IoT is helpful to many companies, there are still risks as it develops—security risks include solution integration, remote accessibility and widespread deployments and usage. Companies using off-the-shelf products should improve security by ensuring that systems are properly integrated, running security assessments, and implementing policies and procedures for acquisitions.

The Future Of IoT

Customer demand changes constantly. IoT services need to develop at the same pace.

Here’s what experts expect the future of Iot development to look like:

Sustainability and IoT

Companies must embrace IoT and its insights so they can pivot to more sustainable practices, using resources responsibly and organizing processes to reduce waste.

There are multiple ways a company can contribute to sustainability in IoT:

• Smart energy management: Using granular IoT sensor data to allow equipment control can eliminate office HVAC system waste and benefit companies financially and with better sustainability practices.
• Extent use style: Using predictive maintenance with IoT can extend the lifespan of a company’s model of manufacturing. IoT will track what needs to be adjusted instead of creating a new model.
• Reusing company assets: Improved IoT information will help a company determine whether it needs a new product by looking at the condition of the assets and use history.

IoT and AI

The combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT can cause industries, businesses and economies to function in different ways than either IoT or AI function on their own. The combination of AI and IoT creates machines that have smart behaviors and supports strong decision-making processes.

While IoT deals with devices interacting through the internet, AI works with Machine Learning (ML) to help devices learn from their data.

AI IoT succeeds in the following implementations:

• Managing, analyzing, and obtaining helpful insights from customer data
• Offering quick and accurate analysis
• Adding personalization with data privacy
• Providing assistance to use security against cyber attacks

More Use of IoT in Industries

Healthcare is cited as one of the top IoT industries, but many others are discovering how IoT can benefit their companies.

Agriculture

IoT can be used by farmers to help make informed decisions using agriculture drones to map, image, and survey their farms along with greenhouse automation, monitoring of climate conditions, and cattle monitoring.

IoT enables agriculture companies to have more control over their internal processes while lowering production risks and costs. This will reduce food waste and improve product distribution.

Energy

IoT in the energy sector can improve business performance and customer satisfaction. There are many IoT benefits for energy industry, especially in the following areas:

• Remote monitoring and managing
• Process optimization
• Workload forecasting
• Grid balancing
• Better decision-making

Finance

Banks and customers have become familiar with managing transactions through many connected devices. Because the amount of data transferred and collected is extensive, financial businesses now have the ability to measure risk accurately using IoT.

Banks will start using sensors and data analytics to collect information about customers and offer personalized services based on their activity patterns. Banks will then better understand how their customers handle their money.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing organizations gather data at most stages of the manufacturing process, from product and process assistance through planning, assembly and maintenance.

The IoT applications in the manufacturing industry include:

• Production monitoring: With IoT services’ ability to monitor data patterns, IoT monitoring provides optimization, waste reduction and less mundane work in process inventory.
• Remote equipment management: Remote work has grown in popularity, and IoT services allow tracking and maintaining of equipment’s performance.
• Maintenance notifications: IoT services help optimize machine availability by receiving maintenance notifications when necessary.
• Supply chains: IoT solutions can help manufacturing companies track vehicles and assets, improving manufacturing and supply chain efficiency.

For more industries using IoT: IoT in Smart Cities

Bottom Line: IoT Trends

IoT technology reflects current trends and reaches many areas including AI, security, healthcare, and other industries to improve their processes.

Acknowledging IoT in a business can help a company improve a company structure, and IoT will benefit a company’s infrastructure and applications.

For IoT devices: 85 Top IoT Devices

For businesses considering a data warehouse solution, a number of competing providers offer a range of features and prices. This article will compare the top seven solutions and explain the features that differentiate them, making it easier to match them to specific needs.

Table Of Contents

• Top Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions
• Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions Comparison Table
• Amazon Redshift: Best For Deployment Optimization
• Google BigQuery: Best For Serverless Data Warehousing
• IBM Db2 Warehouse: Best For Analytic Workloads
• Azure Synapse Analytics: Best For Code-Free Offering
• Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse: Best For Integration
• SAP Datasphere: Best For Data Warehouse Templates
• Snowflake: Best For Cloud Data Warehouses
• Key Features Of Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions
• How To Choose What Data Warehouse Provider Best For You
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Bottom Line: Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions

Top Data Warehouse Providers and Solutions

The top seven providers all offer feature-rich data warehousing plans at varying prices. A business’s specific needs will determine which is right for them. When selecting a provider, consider the use cases and costs for each as outlined below.

Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions Comparison Table

Amazon Redshift: Best For Deployment Options

With Amazon’s entry into the cloud data warehouse market, Redshift is an ideal solution for those organizations that have already invested in AWS tooling and deployment. Redshift deploys with Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud, and web-based solutions.

Pricing

Amazon Redshift has a pricing page where users can sign up for a trial period, request a quote, or calculate costs based on needs. Pricing starts at $0.25 an hour and can be configured using various models based on usage.

Features

• Spectrum Feature: This feature allows organizations to directly connect with data stores in the AWS S3 cloud data storage service, reducing startup time and cost.
• Strong Performance: The performance benefits companies from AWS infrastructure and large parallel processing data warehouse architecture for distributed queries and data analysis.
• Integration With AWS Glue: AWS Glue makes it easy to write or autogenerate Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) scripts in addition to testing and running them.

See all Redshift features at https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/features.

Pros

• Parallel processing capabilities
• Contains network isolation security
• Good documentation

Cons

• Expensive
• Poorly designed user interface
• Unable to restrict duplicate records

For more on AWS: AWS Data Portfolio Review

Google BigQuery: Best For Serverless Technology

Google BigQuery is a reasonable choice for users looking to use standard SQL queries to analyze large data sets in the cloud. It is a serverless enterprise data warehouse that uses cloud, scale, Machine Learning (ML)/Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Business Intelligence (BI).

Pricing

Google BigQuery’s pricing page contains specific information about pay-as-you-go plans and longer-term (one to three year) commitments. The provider offers multiple versions of the platform, including Enterprise Edition and Enterprise Plus Edition. The Standard Edition is a pay-as-you-go plan starting at $0.04 per slot hour and the Enterprise Edition has different plans to help a company find its cloud data warehouse.

Features

• Serverless Technology: Using serverless technology, Google handles the functions of a fully managed cloud service, data warehouse setup, and resource provisioning.
• Logical Data Warehousing Capabilities: BigQuery lets users connect with other data sources, including databases and spreadsheets to analyze data.
• Integration With BigQuery ML: With BigQuery ML machine learning, workloads can be trained on data in a data warehouse.

See all BigQuery features at https://cloud.google.com/bigquery.

Pros

• Works with Google Cloud
• Full SQL query support
• Efficient management of data

Cons

• No user support
• Difficult for beginners in data warehouses
• Difficult user interface

For more information on Google: Google Data Portfolio Review

IBM Db2 Warehouse: Best For Analytic Workloads

IBM Db2 Warehouse is a strong option for organizations handling analytics workloads that can benefit from the platform’s integrated in-memory database engine and Apache Spark analytics engine.

Pricing

IBM offers a free trial for IBM Db2 Warehouse and provides a pricing page where users can ask for a quote and estimate the cost. For the flex one plan, the pricing is $1.23 per instance-hour, $0.99 per VPC-hour, and $850 per a service endpoint dedicated connectivity.

For more information, go to IBM’s pricing page.

Features

• Helpful Integration: IBM Db2 Warehouse integrates an in-memory, columnar database engine, which can be a big benefit for organizations looking for a data warehouse that includes a high-performance database.
• Netezza Technology: Db2 Warehouse benefits from IBM’s Netezza technology with advanced data lookup capabilities.
• Cloud Deployment And On-Premises: Deployment can be done in either IBM cloud or in AWS, and there is also an on-premises version of Db2 Warehouse, which can be useful for organizations that have hybrid cloud deployment needs.

See all Db2 Warehouse features at https://www.ibm.com/products/db2/warehouse.

Pros

• Includes in-memory columnar database
• Cloud deployment options
• Configuration flexibility

Cons

• Expensive
• Limited references online
• Limited buffer pool commands

For more on IBM: IBM: Hybrid Cloud Portfolio Review

Azure Synapse Analytics: Best For Code-Free Offerings

Azure Synapse Analytics, previously known as Azure SQL Data Warehouse, is well suited for organizations of any size looking for an easy on-ramp into cloud-based data warehouse technology, thanks to its integration with Microsoft SQL Server.

Pricing

Azure Synapse Analytics’s pricing page allows customers to request a quote or explore pricing options. For tier one, Azure offers 5,000 units for $4,700; tier two offers 10,000 units for $9,200. For other tier options, refer to the pricing page.

Features

• Dynamic Data Masking (DDM): Azure Synapse Analytics provides a granular level of security control, enabling sensitive data to be hidden on the fly as queries are made.
• Azure Integration: Existing Microsoft users will likely find the most benefit from Azure SQL Data Warehouse, with multiple integrations across the Microsoft Azure public cloud and more importantly, SQL Server for a database.
• Parallel Processing: In contrast to simply running SQL Server on-premises, Microsoft has built on a massively parallel processing architecture that can enable users to run over a hundred concurrent queries.

See more Azure Synapse Analytics features at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/whats-new.

Pros

• Easy integration
• Some code-free offerings
• Strong data distribution

Cons

• Difficult logging metrics
• Limited diagramming tools
• Limited documentation

For more on Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Azure: Cloud Portfolio Review

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse: Best For Integration

For existing users of the Oracle database, the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse might be the easiest choice, offering a connected onramp into the cloud including the benefits of data marts, data warehouses, data lakes, and data lakehouses.

Pricing

Oracle’s Autonomous Data Warehouse’s main page offers pricing information as well as a cost estimator for users. The bottom price for Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse shared and dedicated infrastructures is $0.25 per unit.

Features

• Works With Cloud And Hardware: A key differentiator for Oracle is that it runs the Autonomous Data Warehouse in an optimized cloud service with Oracle’s Exadata hardware systems, which has been purpose-built for the Oracle database.
• Easy Collaboration: The service integrates a web-based notebook and reporting services to share data analysis and enable easy collaboration.
• Strong Integration: While Oracle’s namesake database is supported, users can also migrate data from other databases and clouds, including Amazon Redshift, as well as on-premises object data stores.

See more features at https://www.oracle.com/autonomous-database/autonomous-data-warehouse/.

Pros

• Migration support for other database services
• Purpose-built hardware
• Fast query performance

Cons

• No on-premises solutions
• Limited data connection
• Complicated setup

For more on Oracle: Oracle Data Portfolio Review

SAP Datasphere: Best For Templates

Thanks to the pre-built templates it offers, SAP’s Datasphere might be a good fit for organizations looking for more of a turnkey approach to getting the full benefit of a data warehouse. SAP Datasphere allows data professionals to deliver scalable access to business data.

Pricing

SAP Datasphere’s pricing page lists a free tier and range of flexible pricing options based on needs. The price for capacity datasphere units is $1.06 per unit.

Features

• SAP’s HANA (High-performance Analytic Appliance): The cloud services and database are at the core of Data Warehouse Cloud, supplemented by best practices for data governance and integrated with a SQL query engine.
• Pre-Built Business Templates: Templates can help solve common data warehouse and analytics use cases for specific industries and lines of business.
• Integration with SAP Applications: SAP Datasphere integration means easier access to on-premises as well as cloud data sets.

See more features including a product demo at https://www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/datasphere.html.

Pros

• Inventory controls
• Extract data from multiple sources
• Strategic solutions

Cons

• Difficult for beginners
• Difficult integration
• Limited visual analytics

For more on SAP: SAP Data Portfolio Review

Snowflake: Best For Data Warehouse In The Cloud

Snowflake is a great option for organizations in any industry that want a choice of different public cloud providers for data warehouse capabilities. Snowflake aims to bring development to data, help companies govern data for users, and work globally and cross-cloud.

Pricing

Snowflake’s pricing page links to a quote page and offers a 30-day free trial with $400 of free usage.

Features

• Database Engine: Snowflake’s columnar database engine capability can handle both structured and semi-structured data, such as JSON and XML.
• Cloud Provider Of Choice: Snowflake architecture allows for compute and storage to scale separately, with data storage provided on the user’s cloud provider of choice.
• Virtual Data Warehouse: The system creates what Snowflake refers to as a virtual data warehouse, where different workloads share the same data but can run independently.

See more features at https://www.snowflake.com/en/.

Pros

• SQL-based queries for analytics
• Support for JSON and XML
• Integration with AWS, Azure, and GCP

Cons

• Limited data visualization
• Unable to create dynamic SQL
• Difficult documentation

For more information on Snowflake: Snowflake and the Enterprise Data Platform

Key Features of Data Warehouse Providers and Solutions

Cloud data warehouses typically include a database or pointers to a collection of databases where the production data is collected. Many modern cloud data warehouses also include some form of integrated query engine that enables users to search and analyze the data and assist with data mining.

Other key features to look for in a cloud data warehouse setup:

• Integration or API Libraries
• Data Quality and Compliance Tools
• ETL Tools
• Data Access Tools/Database Searchability
• SQL and NoSQL Data Capabilities

For more features and benefits: Top 10 Benefits of Data Warehousing: Is It Right for You?

How To Choose Which Data Warehouse Provider is Best for You

When looking to choose a cloud data warehouse service, there are several criteria to consider.

Existing Cloud Deployments. Each of the major public cloud providers has its data warehouse that provides integration with existing resources, which could make deployment and usage easier for cloud data warehouse users.

Ability to Migrate Data. Consider the different types of data the organization has and where it is stored. The ability to migrate data effectively into a new data warehouse is critically important.

Storage Options. While data warehouse solutions can be used to store data, having the ability to access commodity cloud storage services can provide lower-cost options.

Bottom Line: Data Warehousing Providers and Solutions

When considering providers and solutions of data warehousing, it’s important to weigh features and cost against your company’s primary goals, including deployment and analytic needs and cloud services.

While each provider and solution offers a variety of features, identifying a company’s own use case can help better evaluate them against a company’s needs.

For more information: 15 Best Data Warehouse Software & Tools

Typically, pursuing a digital transformation means prioritizing tools that enhance a company’s operations, profits, growth potential and more. Here are five examples of what a digital transformation could look like for a modern business to use as inspiration for progress at your own organization.

1. Digital Transformation Creates Strategic Advantage for a Healthcare System

Sometimes, a surprising revelation triggers the demand for a digital transformation. That was the case when leaders of a global and academic healthcare system realized how often people used mobile devices to get information about available health-related services. Data showed 40% of website visitors used mobile devices to get information about the system’s offerings.

This healthcare system was already successful, achieving $5.2 billion in revenue and attracting 30,000 employees and more than 4,000 physicians. However, one of the keys to becoming and remaining competitive is recognizing the need for change and responding accordingly. That meant relying on next-generation digital technologies to improve patient engagement and boost brand value.

Although the healthcare system already had a mobile app, customers wanted more than it offered. Early steps in the digital transformation process involved viewing offerings from patient and caregiver perspectives in multiple contexts. Officials used that information to discuss the characteristics of optimal digital experiences and engaged a service provider to develop a new app.

Next, the client narrowed down features for the first release of the mobile app. The service provider mobilized tech specialists to meet those demands, and ultimately these digital transformation plans created a fielded unified experience application for the healthcare client just six months after initial planning.

Within three months, the application had a 64% month-over-month adoption rate across a target pool of 500,000 patients. Plus, the healthcare system expects $10 million in total savings due to associated physician efficiency gains and streamlined procedures in other clinical and back-office operations. Since the app allows co-pay authorizations when patients arrive, the client may see an additional $10 million from increased collections.

2. A Data-Centric Plan Helps a Multinational Food and Beverage Brand Excel

Nestlé has over 150 years of history and thousands of brands under its company umbrella. Executives continually look for practical and proven ways to enhance operations, and that often means being open to using data and adopting technologies.

The company focused on maintaining privacy, connecting with consumers, and pursuing ongoing experimentation during a recent digital transformation, according to Global Chief Marketing Officer Aude Gandon.

One component of that was developing a future-proof first-party strategy emphasizing data safeguarding and privacy, some aspects of which included using consent-mode features within Google Analytics and developing a global advertising technology roadmap.

Ensuring the digital transformation helps Nestlé connect with consumers means reaching 400 million customers with the company’s first-party database by 2025. That information will allow brands under the company’s umbrella to extract valuable insights that improve competitiveness. One Nestlé company used first-party data to achieve a 25% boost in ad spend return by improving connectedness with customers during seasonal events.

Finally, the part of the digital transformation plan focusing on ongoing experimentation heavily relies on cloud computing. In one project related to a coffee brand in Thailand, employees sent large volumes of data from past campaigns to Google Cloud. They then used machine learning algorithms to predict the most appropriate creative messages to show to specific YouTube audiences. This tactic caused a 17% increase in cost-per-view metrics and a 12% lift in ad recall.

These examples show why aligning long-term plans with certain focal points is often useful. Otherwise, it could become too easy to get off track with the digital transformation. That’s especially likely to happen if numerous decision-makers are weighing in with different opinions and not agreeing about the best ways forward.

3. Digital Supply Chain Planning Improves Pandemic Coping

Many digital transformations involve exploring how new technologies help companies reach their goals. For example, some business leaders are examining how Non-Fungible tokens (NFTs) could strengthen their supply chains. Improved supply chain visibility is a priority for many leaders, regardless of industry, and some experts believe NFTs could track parts from various locations, allowing better delay forecasting.

In one case, DuPont utilized digital supply chain planning through scenario modeling that fostered better preparedness. The company’s supply chain experts scrambled to cope with the global market’s unpredictability in early 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened. They found the systems they’d previously used no longer met needs in the unprecedented circumstances. Leaders decided DuPont needed a customized digital platform.

The resulting creation was a digital tool that allowed people to plan for what-if scenarios that allowed for better business decisions, even in an uncertain environment. The system uses a custom-built algorithm and open-source platform that enable people to run multiple potential scenarios at once within minutes. That saves time and provides trusted results.

Users can also get financial projections, capacity planning, and inventory planning for up to two years into the future. That makes it easier for supply chain executives to make the choices they need to get products to those needing them. This digital platform supports distributing and manufacturing of more than 1,000 products that reach people worldwide. It also allows future scenario testing for nine supply chain categories across 75 locations.

DuPont’s supply chain planners run more than 20 scenarios per month. The company also has over two dozen people trained to use the tool.

4. Electronics Brand Aims for an Omnichannel Approach

The digital environments in today’s business environments are always changing. That’s because improvements and advancements continually happen, pushing leaders to evolve their companies.

In one case, Currys, a market-leading brand in the United Kingdom’s tech retail market, pursued a transformation that would turn it into a digital-first omnichannel retailer. Leaders already knew that 60% of the company’s customers preferred to shop across multiple channels, so the push to suit shoppers’ wants made sense.

Executives had a three-pillar plan for making improvements:

• Ensuring an easy shopping experience
• Providing a connected customer journey
• Creating capable and committed employees

Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform allowed for meeting all those goals. It showed a 360-degree view of marketing, sales, and service interactions associated with every customer. Company decision-makers also used specialty software to update legacy infrastructure and cloud-based tools to give people the information they needed from any location.

These improvements created digital enhancements that affected online and in-store shopping experiences. They also meant employees could focus on building lasting customer relationships rather than merely serving people during single purchases and never attempting to lengthen the relationship.

Additionally, the digital transformation gave customers more personalized experiences, providing them with relevant prices and other product information to reduce friction. Whether people want to buy a new TV or a kitchen appliance, they’ll appreciate having need-to-know information that guides their interactions.

5. Cloud Computing Helps the University of Bristol Reach More Students

One of the primary goals of a digital transformation is to unlock more opportunities for a respective organization. Such was the case when University of Bristol officials wanted to branch out into remote learning. That would provide educational options for more people than the approximately 28,000 students per year who take in-person classes annually.

University executives chose a cloud technology solution and realized that moving into the realm of online courses would bring multiple benefits. For example, it would open new commercial appeal for the higher education institution while giving learners the freedom and flexibility to attend regardless of their locations or backgrounds.

Leaders also believe this digital transformation will improve its academic research arm. The University of Bristol counts international meteorological bodies, pharmaceutical researchers, and health care organizations as partners. All those parties have different requirements, but partnering with academic institutions allows researchers to take advantage of computing and storage resources that further their projects.

The university’s leaders knew their digital transformation would span multiple years. However, they did the smart thing from the start and worked with technology experts that could advise them every step of the way. These parties assisted in defining a target operating model and teaching the university’s employees the new skills they’d need to succeed with the cloud-based technology.

Much of this tech support happened remotely, although it went smoothly. That emphasizes the provider’s knowledge in helping clients digitally transform without the potential restrictions of geographical boundaries.

Digital Transformations Take Many Forms

These five examples prove there’s no single way to enact a digital transformation within a company. However, businesses are most likely to get the best results when they take the time to determine what would most severely limit future growth and success. Paying attention to those issues could provide decision-makers with the evidence they need that a digital transformation must happen soon. They’ll also better understand which problems to tackle first when making digital improvements.

Here are some important trends about the LC/NC landscape and how people feel about it.

1. People Viewing Low-Code Solutions as Core Technologies

Not so long ago, many tech decision-makers saw LC/NC tools as niche products that grabbed their attention but weren’t necessarily critical for day-to-day business operations. However, that’s starting to change, particularly as many companies had to evolve due to challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A 2022 survey from Low-Code platform provider Mendix found 94% of companies across various industries used Low-Code solutions in 2022, up from 77% in 2021. Moreover, 69% of respondents saw such offerings as crisis technologies during the pandemic but now view them as core to their business models.

Additionally, half of the respondents perceive Low-Code products as filling gaps in their IT departments, while 43% see them as able to assist with production engineering needs. Another notable takeaway was that four in 10 respondents now use Low-Code platforms for mission-critical applications. In fact, it’s estimated that 63% of app development activity will be done through Low-Code platforms.

Company leaders also find plenty of ways these platforms can help them. The Mendix survey showed 63% used such tools to address problems with logistics, the supply chain, and transportation. About 32% of retailers said Low-Code tools helped them offer curbside shopping pickups. Additionally, half of public sector respondents mentioned improved planning and management of resources and enhanced service access among the benefits.

However, such efforts sometimes come with issues that are not directly related to Low-Code products. For example, one-third of respondents felt frustrated by their company’s legacy systems. That’s why 39% have required proof that Low-Code offerings will integrate with them. That’s smart information to ask for since Low-Code products are relatively new. Getting the assurance of successful integration with legacy systems avoids surprises.

Indeed, some people have yet to try Low-Code solutions. However, this study shows adoption rates are climbing. When that happens, individuals who previously felt unsure will become more confident about exploring the possibilities.

2. LC/NC Providing an Option Beyond Hiring Developers

Since developers are in high demand, many company leaders must devote significant resources to hiring them. That’s often easier said than done, especially if there are relatively few developers in the job market or those within it have plenty of choices regarding where to work.

A 2023 study gave a closer look at the job market for developers and those who want to hire them. One finding was that 53% of developers consider salary the most important factor of a potential job. Another 38% of respondents mentioned having a good work-life balance, and 28% wanted the option to work remotely.

Another finding was that 52% of developers plan to leave their jobs within the next year. Among that group, 67% said the desire to get a higher salary was the main reason behind that decision. That finding suggests managers and human resources professionals cannot merely assume they’ll be able to retain developers after hiring them. These workers know they’re in demand, so they can afford to be picky about finding and staying at the most suitable workplaces.

On the recruitment side, 23% of tech recruiters said they plan to hire at least 50 developers this year. About 42% cited developer retention as their top priority for 2023, and 46% of recruitment professionals said they’d have bigger budgets this year than last. However, it’s not a given that all recruits will find and attract all the developers they need. This is where LC/NC platforms will prove particularly useful.

They won’t eliminate the need to hire developers, but an LC/NC tool could meet business needs and fill gaps while the hiring process is ongoing. Companies can become more nimble and able to respond to marketplace changes faster than they otherwise might.

3. An Appealing Option for Small Businesses

People who own or operate small businesses often face additional challenges related to resource usage and being able to pursue growth like larger companies can. However, LC/NC platforms could change that, and many analysts who have examined the matter believe they will.

This is not the first time coding has gone through a major change. Object-oriented programming arrived in the 1980s and allowed people to design programs with objects. Similarly, the 1990s and 2000s necessitated using different types of code to meet emerging needs. Companies of all sizes must adapt to stay competitive, but it’s often more challenging for smaller enterprises to make those changes.

An Accenture report clarified why LC/NC tools are vital for helping small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) adapt to the changing landscape and harness all their tech offerings. In the opening part of the document, the authors mention the e-commerce platform Shopify and how it was instrumental in enabling companies to keep operating once the COVID-19 pandemic closed many physical stores. They believe LC/NC tools will have an equal or bigger impact on small and medium businesses.

A statistic cited in the report mentioned that 70% of small businesses are ramping up their digitization efforts worldwide. Low-Code/No-Code tools are instrumental in allowing that to happen. Another finding was that one in five small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) began searching for LC/NC platforms because of difficulties finding digitally fluent workers.

Moreover, 47% of respondents believed enterprise-level IT solutions don’t meet their needs because those providing them don’t understand the associated challenges. They said the shift toward LC/NC among SMBs illustrates that issue. When offerings meant for larger companies fail to fill gaps, people will look elsewhere for alternative solutions.

4. Turning Shadow IT Into an Asset With LC/NC

Shadow IT occurs when people use IT products without explicit workplace approval. Many tech professionals view it as a major problem. Consider how a 2022 study revealed that 69% of tech executives view shadow IT as a primary concern related to adopting cloud or Software-as-a-Service tools. Another 52% of respondents said individual employees purchase apps for use at work without the IT department’s knowledge.

However, some advocate turning shadow IT into an asset with LC/NC apps. A McKinsey report explained how Low-Code/No-Code products could allow organizations to increase innovation and speed when business and IT teams collaborate.

The report detailed three specific ways to achieve those aims:

• Using enterprise-grade LC/NC platforms to customize and expand a product’s out-of-the-box capabilities
• Augmenting existing products to give them new features and capabilities
• Prototyping new ideas to establish use cases for new business applications

Many people use shadow IT products because the approved offerings don’t meet all their needs. These individuals are frequently unaware that they’re breaking any rules at their organizations and are merely trying to keep their workflows productive.

IT decision-makers should get feedback about any shortcomings associated with the approved products for employees to use. They could use LC/NC platforms to address those weak points with new products or options that alter what existing tools can do. After all, Low-Code and No-Code products typically shorten the overall development cycle, making workforces better equipped faster than traditional methods allow.

5. Company Representatives Discussing LC/NC More Often

Low-Code and No-Code technologies have a much better chance of succeeding when business leaders understand the advantages and are open to using them. A 2023 report showed a modest but notable rise in LC/NC discussions at companies.

The data indicated an 18% year-on-year increase in such talks in 2022 versus 2021. That’s important because discussions are often critical to help people with corporate buying power determine if they want to pursue certain possibilities.

Numerous software company representatives have pondered using LC/NC tools to reach internal aims faster than they could with conventional coding. Most business leaders know the importance of watching for changes in their respective industries and responding promptly. Otherwise, people who wait too long to react could face challenges catching up with their peers.

It also helps when companies have specific individuals who champion LC/NC products. Humans naturally resist change, even when they can see some of the advantages. However, when someone they know, trust, and respect encourages them to be open to Low-Code and No-Code products, it becomes more likely they’ll eventually embrace them.

These Low-Code/No-Code Trends Matter

Low-Code and No-Code platforms are still evolving, along with people’s opinions of them. Seeing how things play out in the coming months and years will be interesting. In any case, the five trends here are important to watch because they highlight the current state of things. Even if things change later, these ongoing patterns in LC/NC adoption and usage will likely shape what’s ahead.

Evolving Applications of Low-Code/No-Code

The LC/NC market is expected to grow 20% in 2023 alone and reach an estimated value of $26.9 billion. This technology has gained popularity in recent years as a means of closing skill gaps and making app and web development more efficient. However, it still lacks the flexibility of custom apps designed more traditionally by skilled developers.

Current applications for LC/NC development sit somewhere between off-the-shelf and custom solutions. How will these applications change in the next few years? Here are some of the areas in which developers can expect to see change.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic Process Automation is one of today’s most common applications for Low-Code/No-Code platforms. LC/NC is a great fit for RPA because it usually requires simplifying something that already exists, such as automating a specific workflow.

Low-Code/No-Code developers already know what they need from an app they want to build, so they can shortcut the process without significant User Experience (UX) design. The LC/NC approaches give new developers the tools to build and integrate a straightforward RPA app in the minimum turnaround time possible.

In the future, LC/NC platforms may include more advanced RPA capabilities, and may be able to integrate data from more sources or handle more tasks in a single app. This particular use case may lean more toward No-Code platforms, since automation will soon be necessary for more jobs. As more people without coding experience will seek the ability to use automation, the demand for RPA-specific No-Code platforms will increase.

Simple Web and App Development

The main apps and tools for which Low-Code/No-Code approaches are currently ideal are typically simple in scope and limited in distribution. Most often, a user develops an app solely for in-house use, for their own personal use, or for a one-time event or conference.

For example, Low-Code/No-Code is commonly used for replacing legacy systems. Digital transformation spending is expected to total $3.4 trillion worldwide by 2026. Businesses must evolve their operations and technology to keep up, but that can be difficult without a large development team. Low-Code/No-Code platforms allow companies to upgrade technologies and workflows without in-house developers.

Low-Code/No-Code development platforms aren’t intended for large-scale applications, nor are they ideal for supporting hundreds of users or managing massive quantities of data. In the future, this could change as the technology becomes more capable. For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) could make it easier to create complex apps without requiring coding knowledge.

Challenges and Innovations in Low-Code/No-Code

How will the capabilities of Low-Code/No-Code platforms evolve in the future? What new applications are emerging? They will increasingly shift toward zero necessary IT involvement in the development process as AI makes it possible for nearly anyone to create original, customized code.

Generative AI-Powered Coding

Generative AI is changing the game in app and web development. Platforms like ChatGPT are opening the door for anyone to try developing their own app or website with zero prior experience. Users can type in a text prompt explaining what they want, and ChatGPT will do its best to generate code that fits the bill. It can also help debug code that users copy and paste into the prompt window.

Of course, platforms like ChatGPT are not foolproof. They do make mistakes, and users have found flaws and gaps in AI-generated code. As of 2023, ChatGPT-4 excels with small, specific chunks of code but breaks down when asked to write an entire application. It can deliver customized code, but only piecemeal. Developers still need to know what’s required and how it fits with the rest of their apps.

Platforms like ChatGPT could evolve into full-scale app development tools in the future. In many ways, AI is the ultimate Low-Code/No-Code platform. Users type in what they want the code to do and let the AI do the rest. Businesses will likely be able to function with small teams of developers who verify and implement it.

Greater Emphasis on Cybersecurity

One of the pitfalls of today’s Low-Code/No-Code platforms is a minimal ability to customize security features. The lack of visibility into the coding going on behind the scenes simplifies development but blinds developers to potential security risks. Additionally, people with no coding knowledge or experience using LC/NC approaches  may not be aware of important security features they should have or red flags to watch out for.

In the future, Low-Code/No-Code platforms will see more emphasis on cybersecurity. For example, the Online Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) has developed a framework of 10 key security protocols for Low-Code/No-Code apps. Developers can use it to learn about important security risks and features and how to address them in their development process.

The security options in Low-Code/No-Code platforms themselves will also grow in the years ahead. The global cost of cybercrime is expected to hit $11.5 trillion in 2023 and more than double that by 2027. There will be more demand for advanced security features as security threats grow. For example, developers might begin including AI threat-monitoring tools.

Clearer Intellectual Property Standards

Intellectual Property rights are a growing concern in coding and development, especially since AI can write functional code. When anyone can automate coding, who is really writing it? Who is the developer of new Low-Code/No-Code apps, and who has the IP rights to these programs and any profits made?

These questions must be resolved as Low-Code/No-Code platforms gain in popularity, particularly in the context of growing geopolitical complications surrounding IP rights. For instance, the war in Ukraine led Russia to implement a 0% license fee on IP content from “unfriendly countries” like the U.S. and European nations.

Code and apps can be subject to IP laws, not just content such as books and movies. Low-Code/No-Code platforms may soon be able to develop apps on the same level of customization and precision a professional developer could deliver, and the industry will need to decide who has the IP rights to these new apps—the people using the platforms, or those who designed them.

How Will Low-Code/No-Code Impact Developers?

Low-Code/No-Code technology’s role in the software development industry is also evolving. Everyone is wondering what the future holds for professional software developers today. The combination of AI and Low-Code/No-Code platforms leads many to wonder if they will become obsolete. While this will not happen anytime soon, the developer role is shifting.

Low-Code/No-Code platforms and AI like ChatGPT are tools, like any other technology. They can help developers do their jobs more efficiently and easily but cannot replace the expertise people can provide.

Resolving the skills shortage is one specific area where Low-Code/No-Code platforms will help developers. Coders and programmers are in high demand in all areas of computer science today.

For example, the shortage of cybersecurity professionals leaves many businesses ill-equipped to handle rising cybercrime rates. Similarly, over 37% of recruiters report struggling to find enough developers with the necessary skills for their businesses’ needs. However, young people continue to show a strong interest in computer science, indicating a growing talent pool.

Demand for software development skills continues to grow faster than the available talent pool can keep up with. Low-Code/No-Code platforms will help businesses fill those shortages. Smaller teams of developers can use them to work more efficiently and operate at the same level as a larger group.

Similarly, developers may not need to do much manual coding in the future. Their roles may shift toward designing, testing, and maintaining apps. Meanwhile, Low-Code/No-Code platforms and AI will do the bulk of the actual code-writing process. As a result, developers will be able to roll out apps faster and with less budget required.

Low-Code/No-Code Is Innovating Software Development

Low-Code/No-Code software development platforms are transforming how new apps, tools, and websites are created. Now anyone can get into software development, regardless of prior coding experience.

Low-Code/No-Code platforms will become more capable in the years ahead thanks to the advanced capabilities of AI models like ChatGPT. IP rights and cybersecurity will become important concerns as adoption grows. Professional developers will remain vital to the industry for the foreseeable future, although their roles will evolve to adapt to Low-Code/No-Code processes.

With rapid IT modernization, businesses are eager to adopt effortless application-building processes. Low-Code/No-Code platforms are modular approaches to application development that help users develop custom solutions without writing code line by line. As a result, even non-technical users can build and deploy apps, regardless of their coding experience.

The Low-Code/No-Code market continues to grow exponentially as the platforms enable faster application development with minimum coding and investment. Gartner reports that 70% of new applications will be developed using Low-Code or No-Code technologies by 2025.

If you plan to integrate LC/NC platforms into your teams’ workflows, this guide will help you decide whether LC/NC is the right choice.

What are Low-Code/No-Code Platforms?

While the terms Low-Code and No-Code are often used interchangeably, there are a few key differences between the two.

Low-Code framework is based on Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) that can process simple logic and offer drag-and-drop features. It does not require extensive coding. As it eliminates this bottleneck, users with basic technical aptitude can also design and update apps, reducing the overall coding time, app development cycle, and costs.

No-Code platforms require zero coding experience or technical skills. Any business user can take on application projects using this framework. Using only visual tools, No-Code platforms help create a fully functional app by dragging and dropping software components.

Advantages of LC/NC Platforms

The primary aim of LC/NC platforms is to remove the complexities associated with coding. They effectively address evolving business needs and thus are in high demand. Here are the top benefits of LC/NC platforms:

Less Reliance on Core Development Team

LC/NC tools drastically reduce the dependency on core development teams. Organizations looking to implement digital workflows no longer have to wait for approvals from their developers. With LC/NC tools, business users can rapidly build apps to automate their processes. As a result, the core IT team can focus on larger, contextual business problems and create solutions around them.

Limited Specialized Experience

LC/NC platforms help democratize technology. These tools empower business users and can play a crucial role in overcoming the growing developer shortage. Even a user without coding experience can design applications using the Low-Code/No-Code framework. This is especially beneficial for small and medium-scale businesses looking to digitize their processes on a budget.

Bridge the Gap Between Business and IT

LC/NC platforms create an agile environment that promotes collaboration between business and IT teams. As a result, developers are better equipped to understand the business problem, while non-technical users become more aware of the functionalities they require in their business apps. This clarity allows both teams to ask the right questions and collaborate more effectively to achieve better business outcomes.

Increased Productivity and Efficiency

LC/NC platforms offer pre-configured modules and functionalities that significantly reduce the development effort. This approach also lowers IT infrastructure investments and accelerates the development and launch cycle.

Limitations of LC/NC Platforms

Despite the numerous advantages of LC/NC platforms, they do not necessarily replace core development. Here are a few of the downsides to using these platforms:

Suitable Only for Simple Applications/Proof of Concept

Low-Code or No-Code platforms have built-in templates and components. These can help develop simple applications or Minimum Viable Products (MVP). However, if you need advanced features in your applications or if you need to scale your solution, core development would be necessary.

Limited Functionality/Design Choices

Since LC/NC platforms come with pre-built functionalities and modules, you may not get enough flexibility to customize the application. Plus, depending on your chosen LC/NC platforms, you’ll likely need to settle with available design options.

Security Concerns

When businesses rely on LC/NC platform providers, they also expose their data and systems, raising security concerns. If any security flaws are encountered, non-technical users may be unable to fix the issue on their own.

Top 5 Low-Code/No-Code Platforms

The top five LC/NC platforms each offer strong capabilities for individuals and business users.

Microsoft Power Apps

Technical giant Microsoft offers the cloud-based platform Power Apps to help business users build and deploy applications quickly.

Type of Platform
Microsoft Power Apps is a Low-Code platform that accelerates the app-building process. Integrated with Microsoft Dataverse, it links all your data with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure capabilities.

Applications
Microsoft Power Apps help with application modernization, streamlining migration projects, extending existing development capabilities, centralizing data, and automating manual processes.

Special Features
Microsoft Power Apps has a robust set of features that includes:

• AI copilot for rapid automation
• Process automation for simplified app building
• Drag-and-drop user interface
• Extensive integration with powerful connectors

Pricing
Microsoft Power Apps has pay-as-you-go plans that start at $0.30 per website per month for anonymous users. Subscription plans start at $75 for 500 anonymous users per website. For more details, check the pricing page at https://powerpages.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/

Appian

Appian is an industry-leading software company that helps businesses with process automation and digital innovation.

Type of Platform
Gartner has recognized Appian as a top choice for Low-Code application platforms. It combines intelligent automation and Low-Code development to help businesses in their application-building processes.

Applications
Appian delivers hyper-automation that enables businesses to build and launch smart applications faster. The platform can help in creating native mobile apps as well as enterprise-wide systems. It is suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Special Features
This Low-Code platform is equipped with many features:

• Integration with native deployment tools like Jenkins
• End-to-end process automation
• Faster data design with data fabric
• Appian guarantee to deliver the first project in eight weeks

Pricing
Appian offers free trial services with a guided learning experience. There are other fully featured plans like Application, Platform, and Unlimited. The Application plan starts at $2 per user per month. The standard usage plan starts at $75. Get the details of different plans at https://appian.com/products/platform/pricing.html

Caspio

The American software company Caspio helps businesses create sophisticated cloud-based applications through its No-Code platform.

Type of Platform
Caspio offers a platform for No-Code application development with proprietary workflows to address unique business requirements.

Applications
Caspio can accelerate business transformation with minimum efforts and investment. It can also set up app protection and help with online application deployment.

Special Features

• Extensive integration possibilities with AWS, Paypal, Google Drive, Box, and more
• Massive scalability with AWS infrastructure
• Intuitive tools for data visualization and analysis
• Enterprise-grade security and regulatory compliance

Pricing
Caspio offers free service for light usage. It has other plans, including Explore, Build, Grow, and Corporate. The minimum charge is about $128 per month. You can get pricing plans at https://www.caspio.com/pricing

Mendix

Siemens is the parent organization of Mendix, which offers a highly productive platform for designing mobile and web applications.

Type of Platform
Mendix is a Low-Code platform that accelerates enterprise app delivery with unmatched expertise. With an intuitive visual User Interface (UI) and drag-and-drop functionalities, it can accelerate the app development lifecycle and also automate the involved processes.

Applications
Mendix helps businesses with application lifecycle management, secure data integration, continuous delivery support, app features extension, and other functionalities.

Special Features
Some of the unique features of the Mendix platform include the following:

• Model-driven development for reduced human intervention
• Streamlined digital initiatives for workflow automation
• Robust version control to work on different app features
• Collaborative project management with Mendix Developer Portal

Pricing
Mendix pricing is based on the number of apps to be built: One, or Unlimited. It offers free trial versions for both. Basic, Standard, and Premium plans start at about $63 per month for one app. Check pricing details at https://www.mendix.com/pricing/

Zoho Creator

The multinational technology company Zoho Corporation offers an app-building platform, Zoho Creator. This full-stack product helps businesses create customized applications easily.

Type of Platform
Zoho Creator is a Low-Code application development platform that requires minimal coding. It is user-friendly and has many built-in features and functions.

Applications
Zoho Creator is an excellent choice for developing custom applications quickly from pre-built blocks. Zoho offers multi-platform access as it is also compatible with iOS and Android devices. It also helps create insightful reports to optimize business processes.

Special Features

• Abstracts 90% of complexities in the application development cycle
• Drag-and-drop elements for instant app-building
• Unified data service for centralized management
• Data-structure visualization with cross-functional analytics

Pricing
Zoho Creators offer a 15-day free trial service. It has monthly and yearly pricing plans that start at $11. It also offers flexible pricing options if you need a tailored plan. Learn more about the pricing here: https://www.zoho.com/creator/pricing.html

Choosing the Right LC/NC Platforms

While both Low-Code and No-Code platforms offer programmers and non-programmers the ability to rapidly build apps and deploy them as a service, choosing between them depends on several factors.

When evaluating the LC/NC platforms, consider the following:

• Objective: Low-Code platforms are typically preferable for complex use cases and business-critical requirements that demand on-premises or cloud integrations. On the other hand, No-Code platforms are ideal for a narrow set of use cases with limited scalability requirements.
• Integration Capabilities: LC/NC platforms should offer connectors to integrate external databases and other business applications.
• Automation: It is critical to evaluate the platforms based on automation capabilities. Look for tools that offer Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-assisted development to automate repetitive tasks and enhance productivity.
• Hosting: Your LC/NC vendor must offer flexible hosting options to avoid costly lock-ins. It could be on-premises, on-cloud, or hybrid. Some vendors even allow hosting applications on your public/private cloud. Such an arrangement enables better control over your Continuous Improvement/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.
• Security: Choosing LC/NC platforms that offer robust security features is critical. When evaluating different platforms, look for vendor certifications such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ISO/IEC 27001, and more.
• Vendor support: Your vendor should offer comprehensive support to resolve queries quickly. Without good support services, your citizen developers will likely reach out to your core development teams and occupy them with easily avoidable tasks.
• Cost: When starting out, it is better to evaluate each LC/NC platform through the free tier. Some vendors also offer pay-as-you-go models that will allow you to control your costs based on the frequency of usage.

Low-Code/No-Code movement is accelerating rapidly, allowing organizations to design, build, and ship custom applications quickly and with minimal technical expertise. These platforms drastically reduce the dependency on core developers while empowering business users to innovate faster.

For organizations looking to achieve their digital transformation goals, it is a good time to embrace LC/NC platforms and bolster growth.

A survey from Appian shows that 82% of companies struggle to attract and retain the software engineers they need. Developers engaged by companies are also finding it challenging to meet deadlines. In one study, 47% of software engineers who responded said they lacked the tools to build apps and products quickly enough to meet their deadlines.

Low-Code and No-Code (LC/NC) development enables businesses to address these challenges more efficiently. These innovative application development approaches help generate automated code using Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) like drag-and-drop features and pull-down menu interfaces to make it possible for enterprises to speed up app development by a factor of 10.

Enterprises with no or limited technical resources can leverage LC/NC to create, modify, and deploy applications faster. While the terms Low-Code and No-Code are often used interchangeably, the two approaches have key differences. If you’re planning to integrate LC/NC in your development processes, it’s essential to understand these differences to identify the development approach that will best meet your specific project requirements.

What is Low-Code?

Low-Code is a middle path between manual coding and no coding. Low-Code developers can add their own code over automatically generated code, which helps them customize and integrate their applications.

Pros of Low-Code

• Helps businesses develop applications by depending less on Information Technology (IT) teams.
• Allows faster delivery of software solutions by reducing the time and effort of manual coding.
• Helps solve the market limitations of talented developers by facilitating development by people with little-to-no coding ability.
• Empowers digital transformation and innovation by allowing quick development, testing, and deployment of applications that leverage such next-generation technologies as cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), data analytics, and the Internet of Behaviors (IoB).

Cons of Low-Code

• Can promote “Shadow IT,” the unauthorized development and deployment of applications and IT services beyond those recognized by an enterprise.
• Can limit application customization due to the constraints of features and libraries.
• Proprietary Low-Code platforms, or those that are incompatible with other platforms, can lead to vendor lock-in and portability issues.
• Platforms require frequent updates and audits.
• Applications must be properly tested and verified to prevent security and compliance risks.

What is No-Code?

As the name implies, No-Code is a software development approach that requires zero coding skills to build applications quickly. In other words, it is a hands-off approach that depends solely on visual tools.

Pros of No-Code

• Cost-effective; it allows businesses to build applications without the need to hire developers or outsource software development projects.
• Eliminates the time and effort of manual coding and testing.
• Applications are easily customizable, as users can easily change and update using such simple visual tools as drag-and-drop.
• Easily accessible, regardless of a user’s coding skills or background.

Cons of No-Code

• Functionality is dependent on platform capabilities and, in most cases, offers limited functionality and doesn’t support specific IT requirements.
• May not comply with industry standards or regulations and may expose sensitive data, causing security issues.
• Lacks flexibility and is difficult to integrate with other platforms or systems.
• Restricts users from easily migrating or exporting applications.
• Can affect the reliability and speed of applications with code bloat, leading to poor performance.

Low-Code vs. No-Code: Differences and Similarities

Working Principle

• Low-Code: Platforms have easy-to-use GUIs that let users automate codes. Therefore, they can easily customize applications by adding their logic to auto-generated code.
• No-Code: Development approach solely depends on GUIs, which enables users to build applications without coding. It restricts the users from adding their own code over auto-generated code.

Target Users

• Low-Code: Suited for people with minimal coding skills who want to accelerate their application development process. It is also the best fit for enterprises that want to build customized applications without depending on highly skilled coders or developers.
• No-Code: Allows people with no coding skills to easily build simple, standalone applications. Businesses that want to build self-service applications and dashboards can also take this approach.

System (Open or Closed)

• Low-Code: Has an open system that allows users to access and modify the underlying code. Low-Code applications or platforms can be easily integrated with existing systems and external plugins.
• No-Code: Has a closed system that doesn’t allow users to access and modify the underlying code. No-Code applications or platforms can offer only limited integration with existing systems and external plugins.

When to Use Low Code vs. No Code

Here are the four major use cases for Low-Code development platforms:

UI Design

With minimal coding by using GUIs, people can use Low-Code methodology to create engaging User Interfaces (UIs) that go well with multiple devices, platforms, and Operating Systems.

API Generation

Low-Code platforms can help anyone create Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for both legacy and new applications by analyzing existing application code and auto-generating API code.

UX Design

Low-Code platforms help users create engaging User Experience (UX) through an enterprise’s products and services, such as web portals, mobile applications, or Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).

Containerization

Low-Code platforms let users speed up the development and deployment of containerized applications to multiple environments like the public cloud. Low-Code applications can easily integrate with open-source containerized application deployment and management systems like Kubernetes.

Here are the four major use cases for the No-Code development approach:

Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting

No-Code platforms help BI analysts and developers create reporting tools that transform raw data into meaningful insights by using GUIs and pre-built templates.

Process Automation

No-Code empowers developers to automate such repetitive tasks as data entry and invoice processing without the need for coding.

Interactive Web Portals

No-Code platforms let companies create interactive web portals that offer self-service solutions to customers, such as submitting claims, paying bills, or generating quotes by using interactive themes and layouts and integrating with other platforms.

The Future of Low-Code and No-Code

Three major trends and predictions that show the future is bright for LC/NC approaches: widespread adoption, the rise of amateur programmers, and convergence with other innovative technologies.

Gartner estimates that by 2026, developers outside of conventional IT teams will make up 80% of users of Low-Code tools, up from 60% in 2021. That means more non-technical people will start building applications using these technologies. These amateur programmers are also known as “citizen developers.”

Low-Code and No-Code technologies are already getting integrated with such innovative technologies as AI, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR).

This convergence will lead to more innovation and interactive applications. For example, bringing Low-Code or No-Code together with AI can automate tasks, provide recommendations, generate code, and enhance UX.

However, the LC/NC movement also comes with a few challenges or limitations, such as security, scalability, customization, and integration. While these approaches may not solve every software development problem, they successfully demonstrate how several development phases can be simplified.

In the future, more enterprises and individuals will embrace Low-Code and No-Code tools as they become more widely available and their benefits become more apparent within the community of developers and IT leaders.

Big Data security is routed through a circuitous path, and in theory could be vulnerable at more than one point. 

Navigating Big Data Security & Trends

Two of the biggest trends in the world of big data stand somewhat in opposition to each other: the proliferation of big data that informs smart technology, and also the growing movement for consumers to own and decide how their personal data is being used.

Technologies like IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and even customer relationship management (CRM) databases collect terabytes of data that contain highly sensitive personal information. This personal form of big data is valuable for enterprises that want to better cater their products and services to their audience, but it also means that all companies and third-party vendors are held responsible for the ethical use and management of personal data.

As big data and its enterprise use cases continue to grow, most organizations work hard to comply with consumer data laws and regulations, but their security holes leave data vulnerable to breach. Take a look at some of the top trends happening in the big data world, the important security points that many companies are missing, and some tips for getting big data security right:

Update your cloud and distributed security infrastructure

Big data growth has caused many companies to move toward cloud and data fabric infrastructures that allow for more data storage scalability. The problem? Cloud security is often established based on legacy security principles, and as a result, cloud security features are misconfigured and open to attack.

For a company to navigate this requires speaking with cloud and storage vendors about their products, whether a security solution is embedded, and if they or a third-party partner recommend any additional security resources. 

Set mobile device management policies and procedures

IoT and other mobile devices are some of the greatest sources and receivers of big data, but they also offer several security vulnerabilities since so many of these technologies are owned and used for personal life. Set strict policies for how employees can engage with corporate data on personal devices, and be sure to set additional layers of security in order to manage which devices can access sensitive data.

Provide data security training and best practices

Most often, big data is compromised as the result of a successful phishing attack or other personalized attack targeted at an unknowing employee. Train your employees on typical socially engineered attacks and what they look like, and again, set up several layers of authentication security to limit who can access sensitive data storage.

For more big data trends: Big Data Trends and The Future of Big Data

Benefits Of Big Data Security

With the benefits of customer retention, risk identification, business innovation, cost, and efficiency, a big data security system can be of value to companies everywhere. 

Here are key benefits of big data security:

• Customer Retention: With big data security, a company can observe many data patterns, which allows them to better fit their products and services with their clients needs. 
• Risk Identification: Because of big data security, a company can use big data tools to identify risks in their infrastructure, helping companies create a risk management solution.
• Business Innovation: Big data security can help companies update their tools and help transfer products into new secure systems. This innovation can improve business processes, marketing techniques, customer service, and company productivity.
• Cost Optimization: Big data security technologies can reduce customer costs by efficiently storing, processing, and analyzing large volumes of data. Big data security tools also will calculate how the product will benefit the company, so companies can pick a company that is better for their infrastructure.

For more information on data management: 5 Top Data Management Predictions

Challenges of Big Data Security

There are several challenges to securing big data that can compromise its security. Keep in mind that these challenges are by no means limited to on-premise big data platforms. They also pertain to the cloud. When you host your big data platform in the cloud, take nothing for granted. Work closely with your provider to overcome these same challenges with strong security service level agreements.

Here are the key challenges to big data security:

• Newer technologies can be vulnerable: Advanced analytic tools for unstructured big data and nonrelational databases (NoSQL) are examples of newer big data technologies in active development. It can be difficult for security software and processes to protect these new toolsets.
• Variable impact: Mature security tools effectively protect data ingress and storage. However, they may not have the same impact on data output from multiple analytics tools to multiple locations.
• Access without permission: Big data administrators may decide to mine data without permission or notification. Whether the motivation is curiosity or criminal profit, your security tools need to monitor and alert on suspicious access no matter where it comes from.
• Beyond routine audits: The sheer size of a big data installation, terabytes to petabytes large, is too big for routine security audits. And because most big data platforms are cluster-based, this introduces multiple vulnerabilities across multiple nodes and servers.
• Requires constant updates: If the big data owner does not regularly update security for the environment, they are at risk of data loss and exposure.

Big Data Security Technologies

None of these big data security tools are new, from encryption to user access control. What is new is their scalability and the ability to secure multiple types of data in different stages.

• Encryption: Your encryption tools need to secure data in transit and at rest, and they need to do it across massive data volumes. Encryption also needs to operate on many different types of data, both user- and machine-generated. Encryption tools also need to work with different analytics toolsets and their output data, and on common big data storage formats including relational database management systems (RDBMS), non-relational databases like NoSQL, and specialized filesystems such as Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
• Centralized Key Management: Centralized key management has been a security best practice for many years. It applies just as strongly in big data environments, especially those with wide geographical distribution. Best practices include policy-driven automation, logging, on-demand key delivery, and abstracting key management from key usage.
• User Access Control: User access control may be the most basic network security tool, but many companies practice minimal control because the management overhead can be so high. This is dangerous enough at the network level and can be disastrous for the big data platform. Strong user access control requires a policy-based approach that automates access based on user and role-based settings. Policy-driven automation manages complex user control levels, such as multiple administrator settings that protect the big data platform against inside attacks.
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention: Intrusion detection and prevention systems are security workhorses. This does not make them any less valuable to the big data platform. Big data’s value and distributed architecture lend themselves to intrusion attempts. IPS enables security admins to protect the big data platform from intrusion, and should an intrusion succeed, IDS quarantines the intrusion before it does significant damage.
• Physical Security: Don’t ignore physical security. Build it in when you deploy your big data platform in your own data center or carefully do due diligence around your cloud provider’s data center security. Physical security systems can deny data center access to strangers or to staff members who have no business being in sensitive areas. Video surveillance and security logs will do the same.

Also read: How Big Data is Used: Business Case Studies

Implementing Big Data Security

Whether you’re just getting started with big data management and are looking for initial big data security solutions, or you are a longtime big data user and need updated security, here are a few tips for big data security implementation:

• Manage and train internal users well: As alluded to before, accidental security mistakes by employees offer one of the most frequently used security vulnerabilities to malicious actors. Train your employees on security and credential management best practices, establish and have all users sign mobile and company device policies, and offer only minimum-necessary data source access to each user based on their role.
• Plan regular security monitoring and audits: Especially in larger companies where big data and software grows on a near-daily basis, it’s important to regularly assess how the network and data landscape changes over time. Several network monitoring tools and third-party services are offered on the market, giving your security staff real-time visibility into unusual activity and users. Regular security audits also give your team the opportunity to assess bigger-picture issues before they become true security problems.
• Talk to a trusted big data company: Big data storage, analytics, and managed services providers usually offer some form of security or partner with a third-party organization that does. The platform that you use might not have all of the specific features that your industry or particular use cases require, so talk to your providers about your security concerns, regulatory requirements, and big data use cases so they can customize their services to what you need.

More on security implementation: Top 10 Ways to Prevent Cyber Attacks

Who Is Responsible For Big Data Security?

A big data deployment crosses multiple business units. IT, database administrators, programmers, quality testers, InfoSec, compliance officers, and business units are all responsible in some way for the big data deployment. Who is responsible for securing big data?

The answer is everyone. IT and InfoSec are responsible for policies, procedures, and security software that effectively protect the big data deployment against malware and unauthorized user access. Compliance officers must work closely with this team to protect compliance, such as automatically stripping credit card numbers from results sent to a quality control team. DBAs should work closely with IT and InfoSec to safeguard their databases.

Finally, end-users are just as responsible for protecting company data. Ironically, even though many companies use their big data platform to detect intrusion anomalies, that big data platform is just as vulnerable to malware and intrusion as any stored data. One of the simplest ways for attackers to infiltrate networks, including big data platforms, is a simple email. Although most users will know to delete the usual awkward attempts from Nigerian princes and fake FedEx shipments, some phishing attacks are extremely sophisticated. When an admin is administering security for the company big data platform, never ignore the power of a lowly email.

Secure your big data platform from high threats and low, and it will serve your business well for many years.

Read next: Top 10 Cybersecurity Threats

Big Data Security Companies

Digital security is a huge field with thousands of vendors. Big data security is a considerably smaller sector given its high technical challenges and scalability requirements. However, big data owners are willing and able to spend money to secure valuable employments, and vendors are responding. Below are a few representative big data security companies.

Snowflake

Snowflake’s team of data experts believe that data security should be natively built into all data management systems, rather than added on as an afterthought. Snowflake’s Data Cloud includes comprehensive data security features like data masking and end-to-end encryption for data in transit and at rest. They also offer accessible support to their users, allowing them to submit reports that Snowflake and their partner, HackerOne, can analyze while running their private bug program.

Teradata

Teradata is a top provider of database and analytics software, but they’re also a major proponent and provider of cloud data security solutions. Their managed service, called Cloud Data Security As-a-Service, offers regular third-party audits to prepare for data regulatory committee audits. They also offer features such as data encryption in transit and at rest, database user role management, storage device decommissioning, cloud security monitoring, and a two-tiered cloud security defense plan.

Cloudera

Cloudera’s primary strategy for big data security is to consolidate security management through their shared data experience (SDX), or to manage security and policies from a unified standpoint across all workloads. This means that even as tools and most frequently used workloads change over time, policy and security updates can still be managed centrally without siloes. Among their security solutions, Cloudera provides unified authentication and authorization, end-to-end visibility for audits, security solutions, data policy-specific solutions, and several forms of encryption.   

IBM

IBM’s data security portfolio focuses on multiple environments, global data regulations, and simple solutions so that users can easily manage their data sources and security updates after deployment. Some of the main areas that IBM pays attention to for data security include hybrid cloud security management, embedded policy and regulation management, and secure open source analytics management. 

Oracle

Oracle is one of the largest database hosts and providers in the big data market, but they also offer several top-tier security tools to their customers. Their security solutions focus on the following categories: security assessment, data protection and access control, and auditing and monitoring They also extend platform-specific security support for two of their most popular solutions, Autonomous Database and Exadata.

Hear from a Big Data Exec at Teradata: Ask an Executive: Data Analytics in Business

Bottom Line: Big Data Security

If a company uses well chosen big data security tools, these tools will serve the business well for many years, enabling it to secure its big data platform from threats of all kinds. 

The cloud networking market has made it easier for companies to use intent-based networking, business intelligence (BI), configuration management, and services such as software-defined, cloud, edge, and networking solutions.

For more network trends: Top Network Segmentation Trends

Top 5 Cloud Networking Trends

1. Enterprise Network Strategy In The User’s Home

Changing workforce expectations have led many companies to a more globally distributed remote workforce – a trend that also rises with the cloud. 

As a result, enterprise networking infrastructure now has to support users in their homes.

Drit Suljoti, co-founder and CTO of Catchpoint, a digital experience monitoring platform provider, explained that consumer-grade networking technology does not always offer the levels of support and visibility necessary for remote work, which is increasingly becoming a problem.

“Organizations across the board have experienced the frustrations and performance volatility that can result from consumer-grade WiFi, VPN clients, and increased dependence on the internet from the employee’s wider household,” Suljoti said. “At the ground level, how can IT support desks ensure they have the necessary visibility into the daily digital life of their remote employees? 

“These mission-critical teams need the ability to understand the digital performance of an individual’s device, network, and applications, and the third-party providers they rely on. This is even more essential when employees are working remotely, without on-site support to troubleshoot performance issues.”

Bob Friday, VP and CTO of Mist, Juniper’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven enterprise business, believes that many companies are starting to respond to this remote work shift by increasing networking security and monitoring their employees’ remote work environments.

“[A] major shift is in how enterprise-level networking trends are becoming increasingly important for personal users as well,” Friday said. “Whether you’re an executive at a company or you work in a profession that puts you into contact with sensitive information, the continued normalization of remote and hybrid work environments means that enterprise-grade networking and security will move into the home networking space.

“To ensure end-to-end network visibility, reliability, and security, we can expect enterprise-grade networking solutions to begin permeating remote and hybrid workforces, as enterprise IT teams take an even sharper look at their network edge.”

2. Networking With Remote AI Support

Users and enterprise devices often need technical support that was normally provided in the office. As remote work – again, supported by the cloud – continues to become a standard approach, many companies are adopting AI solutions to assist with customer experience (CX) and support requirements of the network.

“More help is needed in managing this critical infrastructure, which is why AI has become a necessity for network management,” said Friday. “Enterprises and technology providers have already adopted AI assistants in their networking support teams. Cloud AI has enabled a new tech support model, one that has created the volume and quality of data necessary to train AI technologies. 

“This AIOps model has led to incredible progress. At present, AI can answer up to 70% of support tickets with the same effectiveness as a domain expert. Eventually, this AIOps technology will move all the way to the end-user. 

“And like the average human employee, AI has the ability to learn and improve over time, thus providing a better customer experience consistently and proactively. But unlike the average human employee, that skill and expertise is not lost when they retire or quit. The more that AI is used as part of the IT help desk, the more the technology can improve its answers and, ultimately, the end-user experience.”

3. The Growth Of Intent-Based Networking (IBN)

Networking technology continues to grow more sophisticated. Particularly with the more widespread use of software-defined networking (SDN), intent-based networking is being used more in enterprise networks that want additional business intelligence (BI), configuration management, and other features embedded in their networks. All of these feature are part of the growing sophistication of cloud technology. 

Eric McGee, senior network engineer at TRG Datacenters, a data center vendor, explained why IBN is helpful to network administrators who want to better understand and manage their networks.

“One important networking technology trend that network engineers need to take note of is the emergence of intent-based networking,” McGee said. “The main role of IBN is to capture business intent and apply these insights across the network, ensuring that network administration is aligned with business intent. In other words, the IBN framework will receive an intent from the business and translate it, or encode it into the configuration of the network, resulting in the desired changes. Now, the network infrastructure is aligned with the business’s current needs.

“IBN also enables the automation of network administrative tasks involved, such as the configuration of networks, mitigation of risks, as well as the reporting and solving of network issues. Implementing IBN as a form of network administration makes the process of creating, managing, implementing, and monitoring network policies easier, simpler, and less labor-intensive. A lot of the manual effort put into traditional configuration management is made redundant when IBN is implemented.”

4. Holistic Networking Offerings

Traditional networking solutions typically need a variety of hardware and software components to work properly. 

However, as networks continue to evolve their software-defined, cloud, edge, and solutions, many networking vendors are offering more holistic networking packages to manage every aspect of the network.

Patrick MeLampy, Juniper Fellow at Juniper Networks, a top global networking company, believes that enterprise client-to-cloud connectivity is one of the biggest drivers behind more unified networking packages.

“I’d have to say that there are a few key networking trends that are gaining steam,” MeLampy said. “Enterprise client-to-cloud connectivity service offerings will take off. This means we’ll see Wi-Fi, wired, routing, and security capabilities pulled together, all in one simple offering, making it more efficient and effective for teams to manage ever-expanding networks.”

For more on cloud networking: The Cloud Networking Market

5. Managing Network Data With Different Ops Methodologies

With more software- and cloud-based networking solutions used across the board, several companies are looking into new ways to manage and read their networking data.

Richard Larkin, manager of North America sales engineering at NetBrain, a next-gen network operations company, believes that the knowledge and approach of different ops teams are particularly applicable to new ways of automating network data management. 

“The days of managing networks with SNMP polling and traps as well as Syslog data are almost over,” Larkin said. “Many enterprises still leverage these telemetry sources, but it’s not enough. We need a more comprehensive solution harvesting data, from API, CLI, packet, netflow, and other sources, to get the complete picture as well as visibility into SD-WAN, SDN, cloud, and SaaS offerings.

“A trend that I am seeing is the blending and blurring of lines between NetOps, SecOps, and DevOps. With networks becoming more software-defined and cloud-based, organizations are trying to fill the gap of the traditional network monitoring data (SNMP, Syslog, etc.) with homegrown solutions using Python, Ansible, and other coding. What would be interesting is if there was an easier way to codify the knowledge of the NetOps teams that required minimal coding and can be produced in minutes, not hours, days, and weeks.”

For more on networking management: The Network Management Market

The Future Of Cloud Networking

With the vitality in cloud networking for businesses, these trends above will further develop in the future, offering more opportunities for the growing market. From automation and network efficiency, businesses will see more benefits than ever.

Looking ahead, the future developments in cloud networking may include:

• Networking automation: Using network automation will help a company with a variety of tasks, including configuring, provisioning, managing, and testing network devices.
• Network-as-a-Service (NaaS): NaaS is a cloud model that allows users to control their network and attain the performance they expect from it without having to own, build, or maintain their infrastructure.
• 5G Cellular: 5G, the latest cellular update, allows a new network designed to connect virtually, including machines, devices, and more.
• Wi-Fi 6: Wi-Fi 6 is the new release for Wi-Fi network protocol that can be faster than its predecessors due to more focus on traffic and other technologies.
• Network Efficiency: With improved network scalability in the next couple of years, traffic will be aggregated for IP and Ethernet platforms. 
• Universal Networks: In the future, networking will have the ability to add new protocols and functions for better service. This can include services such as Ethernet services, mobile services, and more.

Along with the listed predictions and processes, more technologies are developing in networking, including AI, ML, the cloud, edge computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and more as they continue to play an increasingly important role in the future of networking. 

Bottom Line: Top Cloud Networking Trends

With remote training becoming a necessity in businesses, networking can help manage workers at home with a network strategy and remote AI support – a trend that leverages cloud networking to a great extent. 

Companies can use tools such as software-defined networking (SDN), intent-based networking, business intelligence (BI), and configuration management through their networking infrastructure.

Networking used to be based on hardware-defined networking, increasingly also offers services such as software-defined, cloud, edge, and networking solutions. 

For more information: Top 10 Enterprise Networking Companies

Manufacturers are jumping on board the IoT trend and have begun adding Internet connectivity to a host of products. A quick Internet search turns up countless of “smart” or “connected” products.

Many of them are consumer IoT devices in the home automation space, but the industrial Internet of Things device market is also picking up steam. Additionally, there are many companies offering components and boards for makers and inventors interested in creating their own IoT devices.

Table of Contents, Top IoT Devices:

• Home Automation IoT Devices
• Industrial IoT Devices
  
• Health and Fitness IoT Devices
• Miscellaneous IoT Devices
• Development Boards IoT Devices
• Virtual Reality and AR IoT Devices
• Bottom Line: The Importance of IoT Devices

For more information on IoT: Top 7 IoT Analytics Platforms

IoT Devices – About The List

For this IoT devices list, we focused on IoT devices that are particularly popular, interesting, or otherwise noteworthy. Please note that this is not a ranking; devices are arranged into categories and then alphabetically within each category. 

Top 85 IoT Devices

IoT devices can help not only businesses but consumers as well. From home automation devices to virtual reality, IoT can improve how people work and live. Here are the top 85 IoT devices:

Home Automation IoT Devices

Home automation IoT devices are gaining in popularity among consumers, due to the help they offer for a user’s home. From being able to order groceries online to managing smart homes, IoT devices can contribute to any home.

Amazon Dash Buttons

Amazon offers an assortment of buttons that will order additional supplies of commonly used household products directly from Amazon.com. There are buttons for toilet paper, goldfish crackers, soap, laundry detergent, trash bags, cleaners, Gatorade, soup, razors, beauty products, baby formula, and much more.

Amazon Echo

This smart home hub is essentially a speaker that can listen to users and respond to commands. It can play music, answer questions, read audiobooks, deliver traffic and weather reports, control lights and thermostats, order pizza, order an Uber, and much more.

Amazon Fire TV Stick

With the latest Fire Stick model that includes 4K streaming with Alexa voice remote, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is a streaming solution that meets many other household needs. Whether a user is ordering more detergent through their Amazon Prime shopping cart or pulling up live home security feeds on the TV, the Alexa-enabled Fire Stick gives a user access to more than their favorite TV shows and movies.

Awair

A good option for people with asthma or allergies, Awair is an air-quality sensor that can send smartphone alerts and recommendations for improving the indoor air quality. It also has programs for improving sleep and productivity.

Belkin WeMo

Belkin’s WeMo is a complete line of home IoT devices that include smart switches, cameras, lights, an air purifier, a heater, a slow cooker, a humidifier, and more. The company has partnerships with several other firms that allow end users to control a lot of different devices with one smartphone app.

Bitdefender BOX

This cybersecurity hardware is designed to unify and protect all of a user’s IoT devices, regardless of their native level of security and antivirus protections. The BOX application enables a user to set custom security settings for each of their devices, create profiles and identify strange devices in their network, and catch a snapshot of overall network activity at any given time.

Canary

This all-in-one home security system captures video and audio and sends alerts to a user’s smartphone. It automatically knows when they are home or away (no need to enter a security code), and a user can also view the live video feed from their phone.

Chamberlain MyQ

A user doesn’t have to buy a new garage door opener to control it with their smartphone. Chamberlain MyQ products allow a user to control their existing garage door with their iPhone or Android device.

Cinder

Cinder’s website describes this product as “a cross between sous vide, the high-end slow-cooking water bath method used by restaurant chefs, and the George Foreman grill.” It’s a countertop grill that connects to a user’s smartphone to make cooking fast and easy.

Eve

This line of home automation products works with Apple HomeKit to allow users to monitor indoor air, outdoor weather, energy consumption, and whether windows and doors are open or closed. The same company also offers a line of smart lighting products that can be controlled with Android or iOS devices.

GE Smart Appliances

GE makes quite a few different types of connected appliances, including wall ovens, ranges, refrigerators, dishwashers, washers and dryers, water heaters, and air conditioners. Through GE’s WiFi Connect service and apps, consumers can control the appliances or receive alerts.

Honeywell Smart House Products

Honeywell also offers a huge lineup of products related to home automation and security. It includes thermostats, GPS asset tracking, locks, lighting, video surveillance, and more.

June Intelligent Oven

This countertop oven aims to be “more efficient than your conventional oven, more precise than your toaster oven, and way more intelligent than either.” It includes digital core temperature probes, a built-in digital scale, and a camera with a food recognition engine. The company is accepting pre-orders, and products are scheduled to begin shipping before the end of the year.

LG SmartThinQ

LG divides its SmartThinQ line of connected appliances into categories for the kitchen (ranges and refrigerators), living (washers, dryers, robotic vacuums, and air conditioners), and safety (robot vacuum doubles as a safety monitor with a video feed). They all integrate with the company’s smartphone app.

Nanit Plus Baby Monitor

Nanit Plus maintains the features of traditional baby monitors while adding several smart features to track a baby’s sleep patterns. The device includes sleep stats to track metrics like sleep onset, time asleep, visits, and overall sleep efficiency, helping parents to sleep coach with real insights. Another personalized feature is Memories, which gathers photos and videos in a sleep time capsule over time. This device works when the internet goes down and can be paired with other IoT devices, such as Amazon Echo.

Nespresso Prodigio

With this connected coffee maker, a user can use their smartphone to schedule coffee brewing, order supplies and receive maintenance alerts. The machine heats up quickly and uses single-serve coffee capsules.

Nest

Nest is best known for its Internet-connected thermostat, but it also makes smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and cameras. Its products also integrate with IoT home automation products from a variety of other vendors.

Neurio

With Neurio, homeowners can track their energy usage (or energy production if they have solar panels installed) from their smartphones. It takes a little work to install the device onto an electrical panel, but it can help users identify opportunities for energy savings in their homes.

Philips Hue

Philips offers a complete line of connected lighting products. It includes dimmers, light strips, switches, controllers, and more.

Piper

Piper incorporates both home security and a home automation hub. It has a motion sensor and video camera for security, and the smartphone app allows a user to control lighting and appliances. For added security, it can also integrate with door or window sensors.

Ring Doorbell

The Ring Doorbell doubles as a door answering device and an additional form of home security. With its built-in video camera, Ring senses and records motion near a door, allowing a user to communicate with their visitor in real-time or review the most important security footage later.

Roost

Roost’s most unique product is its connected battery. Designed for use in smoke detectors, this battery tells the user when it needs to be changed so that they don’t get those annoying chirps at three in the morning. The company also makes smart smoke alarms and water leak/freeze detectors.

Samsung SmartThings

Samsung’s SmartThings Line includes smart outlets, hubs, motion sensors, multipurpose sensors, arrival sensors, water leak sensors, and more. The company also sells a complete home monitoring kit that makes it easy to get started with home automation.

Schlage

Long known for its deadbolts and door knobs, Schlage is getting ready for the IoT era with two lines of smart home locks: Schlage Sense is a Bluetooth-enabled smart deadbolt that integrates with iOS devices, and Schlage Connect is a similar smart locking system that integrates with alarm and security systems.

Sleep Number 360 Smart Bed

This smart mattress was designed to automatically adjust to a person’s sleep patterns and to give them real-time data on the quality of their sleep. The 360 Smart Bed automatically adjusts temperature microclimates, firmness, position, and other features based on their movements and sleep cycle. With features like SleepIQ and Partner Snore technology, the 360 Smart Bed application also allows the user to track and improve their sleep health over time.

Sonos

Designed for music lovers, Sonos is a smart speaker system that they can install in a single room or throughout a house. Use the free smartphone app to control the music playing on the speakers—a user can even play different music in each room.

Whirlpool Smart Appliances

For now, Whirlpool’s only smart appliances are washers and dryers, but its website seems to suggest that it has plans to offer more appliances that can connect to smartphones and tablets. Interestingly, the washer and dryer can also connect to the Nest thermostat to help consumers save money on their energy bills.

Wink

Wink is a smart home hub that connects a lot of other IoT products from companies like GE, Nest, Philips, and Schlage. Control lighting, thermostat, door locks, appliances, blinds, and more from a single console.

For more on consumer IoT: IoT in Smart Cities

Industrial IoT Devices

Industrial IoT is made up of devices, applications, and networking equipment made to collect, monitor, and analyze data from industrial processes. Every industrial business can benefit from these devices. 

Aptomar

Safety is always a concern in the oil and gas industry. Aptomar makes IoT sensors and systems for detecting spills and increasing safety. The company also offers services for monitoring oil and gas facilities.

ATrack trackers

Focused on the transportation and logistics industries, ATrack offers GPS tracking for monitoring assets and vehicles. It supplies its technology to a variety of other manufacturers and tracking services.

Centrak

With Centrak’s low-energy Bluetooth beacons, companies can track the locations of employees, assets, customers, patients, and more in real-time. The service is focused primarily on the healthcare, retail, and manufacturing industries.

Bosch

Bosch has set its sights on becoming a leader in the IoT space. It manufactures sensors that go into other IoT devices as well as some smart home appliances. It also offers a complete cloud platform for building IoT applications.

CargoSense

The CargoSense solution includes sensors that can be included with product shipments to track temperature, humidity, shock, light, tilt, and pressure every five minutes. That data is tracked by an integrated analytics system that allows manufacturers and logistics companies to see what is happening with shipments at every point in the delivery process.

DorsaVi ViSafe

These wearable sensors track how employees are moving. The goal is to improve safety and reduce risk by helping prevent injuries. The company also offers similar technology that can be used by healthcare providers to help assess injuries and recommend therapies.

Filament

Filament makes industrial sensors with long-range wireless capabilities. It offers two products—the Tap and the Patch—that can be used to monitor environments and transmit data back to the network.

GridConnect

This company sells a host of sensors, probes, modules, adaptors, convertors, and networking tools that companies can use to connect their factories, warehouses, and other facilities to the Internet of Things. The company also makes a line of home automation devices under the ConnectSense brand name.

Impinj

Impinj claims to offer “the most comprehensive and widely adopted RAIN RFID platform.” It offers tag chips, gateways, readers, antennas, and software for retailers, healthcare, and other markets.

Rethink Robotics

Rethink doesn’t just make robots—they make smart, collaborative robots that can work together and learn, accomplishing precise tasks in manufacturing and testing facilities. A user can either purchase one of their pre-built robots with names like Sawyer and Baxter, or a user can work with the company to build a custom bot for their purposes.

RoboCV

A user can think of RoboCV as a robot forklift. Designed for warehouses, it can move pallets and boxes from place to place without human intervention. Users can control and monitor the vehicle from a centralized panel, and they can also integrate it with external IT systems if they choose.

Samsara Sensors

This startup makes industrial IoT sensors for fleet telematics, energy monitoring, cold chain monitoring, asset monitoring, and other purposes. The sensors transmit data to its cloud-hosted software where it can be monitored and analyzed.

Tachyus Sensors

Tachyus makes IoT solutions for the oil and gas industry. Their products allow producers to measure what is happening with their oil and gas extraction processes and then analyze and optimize those processes to maximize output.

Wzzard Wireless Sensors

Made by a company called Advantech B+B SmartWorx, this line of industrial sensors can track liquid or air temperature, current, liquid flow, vibration, and levels for various types of equipment and tanks. The platform also includes a gateway for collecting and transmitting data from the sensor network.

Xerafy

This company makes RFID tags and other technology for asset tracking in a wide variety of industries. Their tiny tags are small enough to be attached to medical supplies and surgical tools, and they are rugged enough for environments like oil and gas exploration.

Healthcare And Fitness IoT Devices

Healthcare and fitness IoT devices offer many new opportunities for healthcare and fitness professionals to monitor patients, as well as help experts research for recovery. 

AdhereTech

AdhereTech makes smart, wireless pill bottles that help ensure that patients are taking their medication. They are currently being used for research studies, but their use will likely expand to the general population.

Apple Watch

Perhaps one of the most popular forms of personal IoT, the Apple Watch has been adopted by many users for its versatile communication and health-related functions. Apple users can use an Apple Watch to call or text, get directions via Siri, listen to music, track their heart rate and daily activity, and even notify EMS during a personal emergency. Apple Watches pair with other Apple devices like iPhones, but users don’t have to have their phone nearby to use Apple Watch features.

Babylon Health

Babylon Health created an app to help patients have remote appointments and consultations with either a virtual or real doctor. This includes text and video appointments that are AI-powered chatbot that is meant to help patients find correct care.

Biotricity Bioflux

Available by prescription, Bioflux is an ECG monitoring device that allows physicians to keep track of their cardiac patients 24 hours a day. The full solution includes the device, analytics software, and monitoring service that can contact patients and healthcare providers when patients are in distress.

Breathometer Mint

Breathe into the Mint device, and it will tell how effectively a user is brushing their teeth. (Yes, essentially, this is an IoT device that tells a user if they have bad breath). It gives a grade and tracks their progress toward better oral hygiene.

Fitbit

Fitbit leads the market for wearable fitness and health trackers. Devices are available in a wide variety of styles and colors, and they can help consumers track progress toward their fitness goals.

Garmin Forerunner

This line of fitness trackers is focused on people who consider themselves to be athletes. It tracks their heart rate, pace, and times, and it includes tools for a wide variety of sports.

Genoox

Genoox is a cloud-based system that uses genomic patient data and converts it into clear medical data. Genoox records patients’ data so medical professionals can analyze all of the records to find the best treatment for a patient.

Helix

Helix works to help patients have new opportunities to have remote patient monitoring. With the devices Helix provides, medical professionals can provide personalized care without having to leave their houses. 

Karius

Karius is an IoT healthcare service that only needs a blood sample to detect over 1000 pathogens that can detect infections. This can help clinicians and patients alike by running tests to save time and prevent further medical problems.

Peloton

Peloton is a home-based bike workout with built-in classes, instruction, and social engagement opportunities with other users. The Peloton IoT is designed to help a user track their heart rate, resistance, and other fitness metrics in real-time, and their Peloton Bike can pair with other IoT devices, such as Apple Watches so that a user’s activity is accurately tracked across their fitness devices. Although it is an at-home workout, a Peloton device allows a user to build a community and communicate with other riders around the world.

Tempo Studio 

Tempo Studio combines features of both a gym membership and a home workout, with all weights and workout equipment included in the membership subscription-based home set. Through a central “studio” that uses AI to give personalized coaching and weight recommendations for each user, as well as a growing library of live and pre-recorded classes, the program is tailored to provide a smart touch to a home workout.

Withings Blood Pressure Monitor

Extremely easy to use, this blood pressure monitor slips over an arm, takes a user’s blood pressure readings, and sends the results to their smartphone where they are tracked over time. The same company also makes other health-related IoT products like fitness sensors, oxygen sensors, baby monitors, scales, thermometers, and more.

Miscellaneous IoT Devices

Not all IoT devices fall under one industry or category. These devices are equally as necessary and can be used for gardening, fishing, security, and pet ownership.

Benjilock TSA Fingerprint Padlock

The Benjilock TSA Fingerprint Padlock uses a user’s fingerprint to unlock any tool or suitcase a user locks. This helps with security and convenience, so whatever it is locked to is protected.

Click and Grow

If users think gardening was a low-tech activity, meet Click and Grow, the smart indoor garden. The company claims it helps balance oxygen, water, and nutritional ingredients to help plants grow better and faster.

Deeper

Designed for fishermen, Deeper is a portable fish finder that transmits sonar readings to a smartphone. Simply attach Deeper to the line and cast it into the water. Then check the phone to see the water depth and temperature, bottom contours, and where the fish are hiding.

Foobot

Foobot is an IoT device that works to avoid energy waste, make sure indoor conditions are better, and keep the company up to date.

Furbo Dog Camera

Furbo was created to address all dog owner anxieties when a user’s pet is home alone. This IoT can alert an owner when their dog is barking or howling, send photos and video clips of their dog’s activities to their phone via the cloud, and even toss them treats when an owner is away from them. Although the system primarily focuses on dog activity, it can also notify a user of home emergencies related to smoke or CO alarms.

Mimic GO

Mimic GO is a small, portable device that can attach to anything from a gym bag to a dorm room door. Anywhere that someone wants to track unwanted movement or potential theft, Mimic GO sends immediate notification of any disruption. Activate a Mimic GO device through a smartphone app, and it will notify a user if movement or other environmental changes are detected nearby. A user can also set up the device to sound an alarm and ward off unwanted visitors.

Particle Photon 2

Particle Photon 2 is a developing module that contains both a microcontroller and Wi-Fi networking. Different from the original device, it now can support large applications.

Philips Hue Go

Philips Hue Go is a portable smart light to be used anywhere, either attached to a lighting system or on its own. Philips Hue Go is a multi-color light that can be used anywhere.

Theatro

Designed for the retail and hospitality industries, Theatro makes a wearable WiFi-based communication device designed to improve worker productivity. It weighs just an ounce and a half and helps hourly workers stay in touch with each other and receive quick answers to questions.

Whistle

Have a dog who likes to run? Whistle is an Internet-connected collar that tracks a pet’s location and activity level. It can also monitor a pet’s health trends, making it a little bit like a Fitbit for dogs.

For more: Internet of Things (IoT) Security Market

Development Boards IoT Devices

Development boards ‍IoT devices are both portable and flexible for developers. These small computers can help hobbyists, developers, and students alike.

Arduino

Arduino sells a variety of IoT development boards and related accessories, many of them based on open source hardware designs. They offer special collections for kids and home hobbyists as well as more serious products for inventors and developers.

BeagleBoard

This organization offers credit-card-sized computers under the BeagleBone brand name. Most of the boards can run Linux or Android, and they are based on open source specifications.

Cypress IoT Products

Cypress recently purchased Broadcom’s IoT product portfolio. It includes Bluetooth sensors and smart tags, microcontrollers, and system on chips (SoC), as well as the WICED IoT Platform for developing IoT applications.

Discovery STM32MP157C Crypto Board

The Discovery STM32MP157C Crypto Board can leverage its microprocessors to allow users to develop applications using STM32 MPU OpenSTLinux Distribution software.

Flutter

Aimed at hobbyists, students, and engineers, Flutter modules incorporate ARM processors, long-range wireless capabilities, built-in battery charging, and an integrated security chip. The organization says its products are “an ideal choice for robotics, wireless sensor networks, consumer electronics, and educational platforms.”

Microduino

Microduino boards and related modules are about an inch square and stackable. Basic modules start at low cost, and the company also offers kits for building robots, quadcopters, weather stations, and more.

NVIDIA Jetson Nano

NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit is a computer that allows users to run multiple networks in applications like image classification, object detection, segmentation, and speech processing. The NVIDIA Jetson Nano runs in as little as five watts.

Onion Omega2

The Onion Omega2 Linux Compute Modules have been designed for applications that require connectivity and computing. The Onion Omega2 package features a CPU, memory, flash storage, and a WiFi radio. It is an advanced IoT tool.

OpenMote

This firm offers open source IoT hardware, including computing modules, interface boards, and battery modules. Pre-built devices are somewhat more expensive than many other open source boards, with the OpenMote-CC2538 computing module retailing for 90.00€.

Raspberry Pi

Undoubtedly the best-known of all the IoT development boards, the Raspberry Pi is a complete computer the size of a credit card. The third-generation model includes a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU, Bluetooth, 1 GB RAM, 4 USB ports, an Ethernet port, a Micro SD card slot, and much more. It costs around £30.00, and purchasing is available through a network of distributors.

SODAQ

Short for “solar-powered data acquisition,” SODAQ offers Arduino-compatible boards, modules, and sensors that are powered by the sun. The company also develops custom IoT solutions for clients.

UDOO

This company offers boards based on open source hardware designs. Its primary products are the introductory-level Neo ($49.90), the more powerful Quad/Dual ($135), and the x86, which is being funded through Kickstarter.

For more information on IoT sensors: 5 Internet of Things (IoT) Sensor Trends

Virtual Reality (VR) And Augmented Reality (AR) IoT Devices

Interacting with the world through VR and AR is one of the top focuses on entertainment and design work alike. Made for both consumers and professionals, VR and AR IoT devices can help connect people.

Here are the top seven VR and AR IoT devices:

AVEGANT

Light engines, such as AVEGANT, are at the heart of what powers every augmented reality product. Avegant offers edge technologies that allow a user to have compact and manufacturable AR light engines.

Google Cardboard

A surprisingly low-tech approach to virtual reality, Google Cardboard requires users to slot an Android smartphone into a cardboard (or plastic) viewer that they can make themselves or buy. For nostalgic toy lovers, there’s also a viewer that looks like a Mattel View-Master.

Microsoft HoloLens

Designed primarily for enterprise use, Microsoft HoloLens is an augmented reality device that can assist with design work, communication, training, and more.

Oculus Rift

Facebook’s Oculus Rift device offers consumers a virtual reality experience for playing games, watching movies, and other entertainment experiences. Devices start at $399, and to use them buyers will need a compatible PC.

RealD 3D

RealD is one of the well-known VR IoT tools. RealD aims to have the perfect visual experience for their users that works on many devices. As a premier visual technology, RealD designs and licenses contain technologies that allow a premium viewing experience in the theater, at home, and on personal devices.

Samsung Gear VR

Powered by Oculus technology, Samsung’s VR headset integrates with its Galaxy line of smartphones. Key features include a Super AMOLED display, wide field of view, precise head tracking, and low latency.

TPCAST

TPCAST Wireless Adaptor, a Vive product, allows users to install it on their own. With an antenna array and large bandwidth, it ensures a great display experience for users that is the same as that with the cable. Vive users now can enjoy a VR experience freely.

Bottom Line: The Importance of Internet of Things Devices

The growing Internet of Things sector benefits home automation, industrial, healthcare, development boards, and more. Many companies offer IoT devices to help improve the lives of users.

IoT devices help connect the business and consumer worlds to help exchange data among many industries. IoT has become a necessary tool to help with company decision-making, monitoring data, and automating home and business processes. As IoT grows, it will play an increasing role in business and consumer commerce. 

For more: It’s Time to Embrace Intelligent IoT