Keynote presentation for NoSQL Now! 2014 conference. * Why there will be Internet of Things as commonly conceived * The IoT as a Big Data problem * The rise of Big Metadata * Imagining the Internet of Light Bulbs * Systems Thinking and Light Bulb Architecture * The 'WItnesses' Principle * Security and Privacy with the IoT * A Species and its Data

1. BIG DATA COMES IN SMALL PACKAGES
How the Internet of Things Will Change Big Data’s Future
Daniel Austin
GRIN Technologies, Inc.
The Connected Life Company
daniel.austin@grintech.net
NoSQL Now!
August 21st, 2014
V1.1

2. ABOUT GRIN TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Founded July 4th 2014
• “The Connected Life Company”
• Developing Systemsware at the Intersection of Big Data and the Internet of Things
• Smart People Working Hard to Solve Real Problems
• Coming in Q3 2015: The Connected Life Server ™
• A Platform for Connecting People, Places, and Things
Soft launching today at NoSQL Now!

3. FOUR BIG IDEAS FOR TODAY’S TALK
1. No “Internet of Things”, only disjoint Networks of Things
2. The IoT is an “iceberg” Big Data problem
3. Things are dumb, systems are smart
4. The “Witnesses” principle

4. WHY THERE WILL BE NO “INTERNET OF THINGS”
• No clients; no servers
• No network that connects them all
• No protocols that make sense
• Intermittent, Transient, Low Value, Connectionless
Many of Our Current Assumptions About the Internet Simply Don’t Apply!

5. INSTEAD, DISJOINT NETWORKS OF THINGS
• Disjoint – for Security and Privacy
• Functional and Context-Specific
• Mesh-based Peering Architectures
Peer 1
Peer 2
Peer3
Peer 4
Peer 1
Peer 2
Peer3
Peer 4
Public
Internet
Gateway Gateway

6. LAYER 8 HYPOTHESIS
• You are a Node on the Internet!
• The Internet Connects People, Not
Computers
• Humans are Machines that Turn
Data into Information

7. THE CONVERGENCE OF THE IOT AND BIG DATA
It’s not an accident that these
technologies are coming together at
the same time; the IoT wasn’t possible
before we had solutions to Big Data
problems.
Things
Big Data
Big Metadata

8. METADATA EXPLOSION
• “Big Metadata” is a bigger problem
than Big Data
• Austin’s Law: “The Amount of Data
to be Crunched Will Always Exceed
the Computing Power Available.”
• What are these companies’ data
retention policies?

9. ARE YOU A BIG DATA PROBLEM?
• Each person will generate roughly 25 petabytes of data over the course of a lifetime
• Users have little control over collection and storage
• Email, documents, receipts, bills (!), your car, music, books…
• Pervasive computing multiplies the problem
• Majority of data valueless out of context
• Security & privacy risks may outweigh the benefits ?!

10. LET’S TALK LIGHT BULBS
• Invented in 1879 by Edison and Swan
• Many others before had failed
• One of humanity’s most important inventions
• More than 400 distinct types are manufactured
• Streets, Airplanes, Neon (Still 82%
Incandescent!)
• The Eiffel Tower uses 20,376 light bulbs
• Many Lighting Systems Are Extremely Complex!
• Not a simple on/off state machine
• Critical for many life-and-death situations
• Unsustainable and unmanageable at scale
• Arrogant, disposable “dumb” design
• 2013: First light bulb on the Internet

11. IMAGINING THE IOLB
What If…
Every light bulb was connected to the IoT?
What Would the Architecture Look Like?
Could We Manage the Data Usefully?
Could We Build it?

12. LIGHT BULBS ARE DUMB; SYSTEMS ARE SMART
• We can’t design the IoLB by only changing the light bulbs; it’s a system
• It’s necessary for the system to evolve, not just the bulbs
• Bulbs will change to meet new conditions, become smarter
• Sockets, power lines, power generators and coal mines
• Every part of the system will evolve at a different rate
• While building the IoT, we will need to consider how to build smart systems
that help ordinary users, requiring compromise (and patience)

13. SYSTEMS THINKING AND LIGHT BULB ARCHITECTURE

14. WHICH COMES FIRST? THE SOCKET OR THE BULB?
• Problem: Do we want smart light bulbs or smart sockets?
• Light bulbs are easy to change, sockets are not
• But in an ideal world, most of the architectural ‘smarts’ of the IoLB
would be in the socket
• This is a classic architectural trade-off
• It’s too expensive to upgrade every part of the
system at the same time!
• Our light bulbs will be smarter than their sockets
• For some time; this will have wider implications
• For the IoLB (and IoT)

15. THE IOLB AND BIG DATA
12x10^9 light bulbs x (365 state changes/day) x 2 x 22 bytes = Big Data
A more realistic estimate would be 3 orders of magnitude larger! Plus the history, maintenance, etc.

16. SECURITY AND PRIVACY
ON THE IOT
• Security Is Protection from Harm
• Privacy is Filtering Data Based on Context
• The Separation of the Self from the Group
• Persona v. Identity

17. THE “WITNESSES” PRINCIPLE
• Cellphones are “things”, so are security cameras…
• “When There’s a Witness to Every Act…”

18. By 2020 everyone, everything and
everywhere will be connected in real
time. More than 50 billion connected
devices will be used in the
Networked Society.
Source: http://www.ericsson.com/thinkingahead/networked_society

19. IN A WORLD OF
TEN BILLION PEOPLE
AND THEIR THINGS…
• Everyone will be connected – to each other
• Privacy will disappear
• Security (and civility) will increase
• Witnesses are a good thing ™

20. A SPECIES AND ITS DATA: THE LONG VIEW
• We can’t build to scale exponentially.
Period.
• We are all part of the network
• The purpose of evolution is
computation
Will humanity merge with it’s data?
The Age of Big
Metadata
The Age of
Big Data

21. THANKS!
“When everyone’s life is connected, that’s when the
Singularity will happen.”
Daniel Austin
GRIN Technologies, Inc.
The Connected Life Company
daniel.austin@grintech.net
http://www.grintech.net
@daniel_b_Austin
@GRINTechInc