Smart world is envisioned via the fusion of diverse technologies like sensor communications, cloud computing, internet of things, AI, machine and deep learning. No doubt, new technologies bring revolution and innovation in every aspect of human life, but they are accompanied by lots of limitations in terms of energy wastage, environmental hazards like carbon or other chemical emissions, extreme consumption of natural or renewable sources and greenhouse effects. In order to minimize the negative impact of these technologies on the environment, it is utmost important to move towards green technology. That is the reason researchers are working hard and moving towards green computing, ICT, and IoT. This chapter explores an in-depth analysis of principles of G-IoT, making significant progress towards improvising the quality of life and sustainable environment. In addition to this, the chapter outlines various Green ICT technologies explores potential towards diverse real-time areas and also highlights various challenges acting as a barrier towards G-IoT implementation in the real world.
TopIntroduction And Evolution Of Internet Of Things
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have automated and simplified various routine tasks in the real world. Computers, these days, are playing a significant role in controlling and monitoring almost all aspects of the physical world. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have created a significant impact on all aspects of mankind right from basic living to transformation of an “Industrial” to “Global Connected” society. Since the invention of the Internet almost 40 years ago by ARPANET (Kakabadse, Kouzmin, & Kakabads 2017), the word “Internet” is defined as network of networks, serving billions of users across the planet in 24x7 order. Indeed, an era has just started, where ubiquitous communications are becoming a reality. The internet has played a crucial role in enhancing and developing ICT sector. All the communications on the Internet take place in the manner of “Client-Server” architecture in which servers get the request from the users and process it and clients are a billion users getting the response from servers worldwide. Social Networks are regarded as the ultra-most modern trend to revolutionize the way information is generated and distributed across worldwide. In addition to this, Machine to Machine communication is also increasing in a consistent manner and now one machine utilizes the information generated from one machine like Sensors Communicating Online with the Server or Remote Monitoring Station. Everything around the world is getting connected. New ICT solutions are hitting on a routine basis, particularly, Internet of Things (IoT)., which is changing the way the people organize, interact and participate in various facets of society. Internet of Things is regarded as a flawless integration of users and devices to converge the physical realm with human-derived virtual environments. Internet of Things (IoT) is regarded as a worldwide network of physical objects intercommunication anywhere and everywhere cum anytime and every time.
IoT is mixture of two important components “Internet” and “Things”. The simple explanation to this is, “Any device having the capability and is compatible to connect to the Internet will come under Things”. Things can be called “Smart Devices”, “Sensors”, “Miscellaneous Objects” to communicate with one another and accessible anytime and from anywhere.
The term “Internet of Things” was coined by “Kevin Ashton” (Ashton, 2017) in 1999. IoT is rebranding the existing face of Machine to Machine (M2M) of today. According to Ashton “The IoT creates an intelligent environment using invisible network fabric that can be sensed, controlled and programmed. IoT-enabled products employ embedded technology that allows devices to communicate directly or indirectly with each other or the Internet” (Ashton, 2017).
Till date, 5 billion devices are connected to the Internet and are regarded as “Smart Connected” things. It is also predicted that by 2020, more than 50 billion devices will be connected and soon in next coming years, IoT will become almost 3 trillion-node networks worldwide (Santucci & Lange, 2008),(IERC,2018), (CASAGRAS, 2018).
Internet of Things: Definitions
IoT has become a “Global Concept” and various standard organizations have given definitions of IoT in a comprehensive manner. International Telecommunications Unit (ITU, 2018), (IETF, 2018), (NIST, 2018), defined the Internet of Things in their own words according to their application areas. Considering all the above-foresaid definitions defined by various standard organizations regarding IoT, one can find it really complex to understand the entire scenario and working of IoT and even with regard to basic methodologies and architecture of IoT. In a nutshell, IoT is a mix of two terms, “Internet and “Things/Objects”. Figure 1 shows the Ecosystem deriving Internet of Things.
Figure 1. Ecosystem deriving Internet of Things