IoT gateways fulfil several roles in IoT projects. As the number of devices, the scale of IoT projects (and volumes of – heterogeneous – data) and the need for faster intelligence, better security and more integration grows, so does the need for IoT gateways.
IoT gateways are also important in a context of fog computing. They play a key role in the convergence of IT and OT although not all IoT gateways are the same, let alone have the same capabilities. A strong driver for the growing adoption of IoT gateways is the fact that intelligence shifts to the edge as in many industries existing devices get replaced by their ‘intelligent’ counterparts and there is the just mentioned fog. As an example of shifts towards the edge and edge computing: read how that move towards the edge with autonomous decisions by devices is happening in the application of IoT in building management.