Characterizing the Capabilities of Internet of Things Analytics Through Taxonomy and Reference Architecture: Insights From Content Analysis of the Voice of Practitioners

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of business cases utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) analytics, coupled with the diversity of IoT analytics platforms and their capabilities, poses an immense challenge for organizations seeking to make the best choice of IoT analytics platform for their specific use cases. Aiming to characterize the capabilities of IoT analytics, this article presents a reference architecture for IoT analytics platforms created through a qualitative content analysis of online reviews and published implementation architectures of IoT analytics platforms. A further contribution is a taxonomy of the functional and cross-functional capabilities of IoT analytics platforms derived from the analysis of published use cases and related business surveys. Both the reference architecture and the associated taxonomy provide a theoretical basis for further research into IoT analytics capabilities and should therefore facilitate the evaluation, selection and adoption of IoT analytics solutions through a unified description of their capabilities and functional requirements.