Not so long ago, development times of 12 to 18 months were not uncommon. The primary constraint was M2M’s proprietary, silo architecture, but now the industry is moving towards a standards-based, high-level architecture. We are also witnessing the deployment of service enablement and service delivery platforms that will facilitate the development of applications in much shorter timeframes. 

This is part of a wider and deeper trend, i.e. the adoption of mainstream ICT technologies. For example, the Open Services Gateway (News - Alert) Initiative (OSGI) is an application framework that will allow enterprises to add, amend and drop M2M services in line with changing requirements. Another, more obvious trend, is the way that M2M is becoming an integral part of cloud computing.

Cloud computing employs virtualization, the decomposition of applications into components, and a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which combine to facilitate the rapid creation and deployment of new services and business processes. And something similar is taking place in the M2M space.

Eurotech employs a software framework that has generic components such as device configuration, Bluetooth management, firewall, VPN, etc. in a foundation layer. These software components (modules) have been tested and deployed, which removes the need for solution developers to reinvent these wheels.  And they combined using an SOA-type mechanism.

In addition, the company has created bundles of industry specific components, e.g. GPS services and passenger control for the transportation bundle. In a somewhat simplistic nutshell, the combination of generic and industry specific components adds up to a set of baseline solutions that developers customize in order to meet the specific requirements of their customers. Eurotech markets this concept as a way of simplifying and speeding up M2M application development.

Embedded systems and devices

Nokia (News - Alert) coined the term M2M in the ’90s and for a while it was part of the Internet bubble. The first “M” was a vending machine and the second was a cellular phone. The idea was that payment for drinks and snacks showed up on the operator’s monthly invoice. However, embedded systems and devices had been deployed much earlier, e.g. in the oil and gas industries. 

The functionality was the same as that of M2M, but in this case, data were processed at the local level and information was transmitted to a central facility. In most M2M apps it is the other way round, but it is worth noting that the new, standards-based, high-level architecture has extended M2M capabilities located in a separate device domain as well as core network.  What goes around comes around.

In many if not most cases, these embedded systems and devices have also been tested and widely deployed, which takes care of the hardware side of the solution. Moreover, the design reflects the regulatory and compliance requirements of the various market sectors.