A preliminary study of loop-time delays in IoT platforms: the ThingSpeak case

Abstract

IoT platforms play an important role on modern measurement systems because they allow the ingestion and processing of huge amounts of data (big data). Usually, these platforms run as a service on the cloud and are accessed through open programming interfaces based on ubiquitous internet protocols (such as HTTP). Data analysis is done in batch, from time to time, or when a pre-configured event is triggered. Most of the platforms can also actuate on the physical world by issuing messages, thus closing the loop ingestanalyze-actuate. The continuous investment on IoT platforms has made them extremely reliable and performant, wondering if they can be used to control physical processes. The paper contributes to this discussion by evaluating the loop-time – defined as the delay between ingestion and actuation – of the ThingSpeak platform. The measuring methodology is explained, results are presented, and conclusions are extracted.