- [Instructor] The network fabric is one of the four
main components of the IoT product.
Its main job is to transport internal data
from the hardware-defined product
and external data from the external systems
to the software-defined product.
It consists of the OT network,
that is the operational technology network,
that's inside the product.
The IT network, or information technology network,
that takes the data to the cloud,
the backhaul which is the uplink,
the internet, and the product cloud,
which is a private computing resource for the product.
However, the network fabric is more than just connectivity.
It's called fabric but in fact,
it's a distributed computing platform as well as networking.
It's provides computing and storing.
The languages that allow the different part of the network
to talk to each other are called protocols,
but this is equivalent to standards
or sometimes referred to as layers.
Especially in the operational technology network,
these protocols have evolved separately
and to their own purposes.
They started as just communicating with screens,
then between machines,
and finally within local area networks.
There are three main protocols in IoT.
The media layer is first.
It organizes the information to be transmitted by radio.
The second is the networking layer.
It organizes information to be transported
along either the OT or the IT network.
And the third is the application layer.
It provides contextual data along with the data payload
to be consumed by the application.
And fourth is the meta layer.
It's not standardized yet,
but it constrains the vocabulary that's used
in the application layer.
It's useful to think of IoT protocols
as nested Russian dolls.
First we have our payload.
This comes from the sensor.
It is wrapped by the application protocol
that has extra information
to provide context to the payload.
Wrapped around the application protocol
is the network protocol.
This gives the network the information it needs
to move the data along the path.
And finally we have the media protocol.
That wraps around the network protocol
to allow it to be connected over the air with radios.
The network fabric is the plumbing
that connects the various parts of the IoT product.
While it's important,
it's not where a company should develop
its intellectual property.