IoT generates huge amounts of data from sensors connected to machine parts or perimeter sensors, or the words we shout into our smart speakers. This means that IoT is an important driver of big data analysis projects because it allows companies to build and analyze large data sets.
Giving a manufacturer a large amount of data about how its components behave in real-world situations can help them make much faster improvements, while data collected from sensors around a city can help planners make traffic flow more efficient.
This data will come in many different forms, such as audio, video, temperature or other sensor readings, all of which can be extracted for insight. As Analyst IDC points out, the IoT metadata category is a growing data source that needs to be managed and used. "Metadata is a prime candidate for feeding into NoSQL databases such as MongoDB to bring structure to unstructured content, or feeding into cognitive systems to bring new levels of understanding, intelligence and order from outside to random environments," he said.
IoT in particular will provide large amounts of real-time data. Cisco calculates that Inter-machine connections that support IoT applications will account for more than half of the total 27.1 billion devices and connections, accounting for 5% of global IP traffic by 2021 Dec.