RFID Recruiters (“RFIDR”) specializes in providing recruiting services for companies and individuals involved with Radio Frequency IDentification technologies, products, applications, and services.

In the realm of Radio Frequency (RF) and IDentification (ID) technologies, M2M (Machine to Machine Communications) is evolving to become an important combination of offerings designed to enable devices on the edge of Information Technology (IT) to communicate with systems at interior of IT.  These offerings, consisting of both products and services, are capable of supporting of many enterprise and consumer applications. 

Currently, M2M is often thought of in the context of using mobile (cellular) networking technologies to connect various types of remote devices with more traditional computing resources such as servers which are generally located at the interior of IT systems.  In this respect, M2M is the "long distance" component of RFID.  Where RFID has generally operated within the realm of meters and centimeters, M2M provides an architecture capable of supporting edge device communications over kilometers, and in fact over any distance and to any location supported by mobile wide area networking.  RFID Recruiters believes that increasingly, the wide area networking communications capability of M2M technologies will merge with the local area networking technologies of RFID, NFC, and sensors.

RFID Recruiters believes RFID (including NFC) technologies, in conjunction with sensor and M2M technologies plus Cloud Computing and Networking, will form key building blocks for Pervasive Computing and Ubiquitous Networking.

  M2M Recruiters is a business unit of RFID Recruiters focused on serving clients and candidates involved with M2M technologies, products, applications, and services.

  Unlike RFID which has seen substantial collaboration between constituents including technology provider companies, users within the private and public sectors, academic institutions, and various standards body organizations for a sustained period of time - over the last decade - M2M is in many respects just beginning the standards development process. 

Among the most visible of standards initiatives has been the work of 3GPP and the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) M2M Standardization Task Force (MSTF).

Some history of these initiatives as reported  (and excerpted) by TMCnet's Embedded M2M Solutions on August 19, 2011:

Numerex, a provider of secure machine-to-machine (M2M) products and services, held a meeting of the Global Standards Collaboration Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Standardization Task force (GSC MSTF) September 20-21, in Atlanta, GA.

The event, organized by Numerex in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), was hosted by Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). The theme of the meeting was "M2M Standards as Growth Enablers."

The GSC MSTF was created last year in Beijing at the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC)-15 with a purpose of facilitating global coordination and harmonization in the area of M2M standardization. Numerex's CTO, Dr. Jeffrey O. Smith, was appointed convener of the GSC MSTF at the Beijing meeting.

"Numerex is honored to have been chosen to organize this important event in the global M2M arena, which will feature international Standards Development Organizations, various standards alliances focusing on specific vertical markets, and companies that are leaders in their field,” said Stratton J. Nicolaides, chairman and CEO of Numerex, in a statement.

“The effective collaboration with TIA and Georgia Tech, in particular GTRI's Information and Communications Laboratory has contributed to make this premier international M2M gathering a required stop for any M2M player interested in keeping current with the latest M2M developments," Nicolaides added.

The GSC MSTF event at Atlanta event was broken down in two parts. The first day was a conference, where experts from a wide range of industries presented their views on the impact of M2M standards on their vertical markets.

The second day featured a roundtable to summarize the findings of the GSC MSTF meetings, and put forward drafting suggestions and recommendations regarding the direction of global M2M standardization. Both the conference and roundtable were free of charge."

Approximately three months after the September 2011 meeting in Atlanta, TIA announced the release of the TIA-4940 Smart Device Communications Reference Architecture, as reported by Mobile Enterprise Magazine:

New TIA Standards Focus on M2M, Cloud Computing

By Ariel Jones
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) recently released its Smart Device Communications Reference Architecture standard, the first standard to address machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies and markets.

Developed by TIA's TR-50.1 Smart Device Communications, Requirements, and Architecture Engineering Subcommittee, the standards document outlines reference architecture specifications and interoperability requirements for smart devices across all industries. TIA developers believe it will lay the foundation for future standards on M2M and universal adoption of IP-enabled applications across vertical markets.

The standard (named TIA -4940 Smart Device Communications Reference Architecture) will work across both wired and wireless transport layers, and also takes into account security, end-to-end performance and scalability of equipment and networks, and device management.

Standards Focus on M2M in the Enterprise

As Herb Congdon, TIA's Associate Vice President of Technology and Standards, noted, the TIA-4940 standard is designed with the enterprise needs in mind. "It's groundbreaking from TIA's perspective because these are the first two documents that we’ve produced in the end-to-end or the M2M space.... The M2M side of the world is the B2B model, devices inside the business model communicating with other devices in the business, and that's usually how you can establish for the business-to-consumer model down the road, and I think that's also part of why it's innovative."

The TIA 4940 document is essentially a table of contents, Congdon explained. In the future, as new requirements and issues arise, more components can be added to the standard. The TIA 4940 was published in conjunction with the TIA 4940.005, the reference architecture, which was used to establish the framework for the use of mobile technology in the M2M space.

"There's lots of different ways you can communicate, and a lot of what's expected in the M2M world is the IP-ethernet type of communications," Congdon stated. "When we start seeing and enabling those kinds of technologies, in the M2M world, that enables us to get to thing like smart metering - a B2B application, remote patient monitoring, intelligent traffic systems... All of this kind of information, including even more of the green-focused ideas like building automation systems, can be enabled under the M2M framework."

Cloud Computing Standards

In response to the growing use of cloud computing for the mobile enterprise, TIA committee also sought to establish standards for this market. An engineering committee was also set up to define how users in the industry engage with the cloud; their recommendations were also incorporated into the TIA 4940 documents.

"The number of standards in the cloud computing market is low, but the demand is very high," said George Ivanov, Manager of Technology Initiatives in Technology and Standards at TIA. One of the key recommendations was to strictly focus on improving redundancy, essentially backups of the data.

"The cloud computing model specifically requires that you use multiple data centers, so we asked that committee to look at and address how the data can be handled across multiple data centers, and how cabling and network cabling would work across multiple data centers," Ivanov explained. The final product was the creation of a data fabrics task group that would essentially create new network cabling models for the cloud.

M2M-Related Security Concerns

The TR-50.1 subcommittee also recognized security as a major concern for mobile device users in the M2M space; they then worked with an ad-hoc security group, chaired by Chuck Bokath of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, to identify security issues specific to the M2M space. As a result, the TIA 4940 addresses concerns like the protection of data content, authentication of devices, and regulating network traffic and signaling.

Security issues arise whenever communications are being sent between devices, either at the creating device, the receiving device, or somewhere in the middle, Congdon noted. "The philosophy that the 4940 standard is taking is to establish a security framework that would then support many different security models." These models address specific security issues, like authentication, authorization, and accounting.

By establishing a security framework to adhere to, the standard also enables enterprise professionals and developers to design and enforce security policies that can be deployed according to a business' individual specifications.

"I expect we'll come out with a roadmap or a playlist of things to do out of this ad-hoc, and the next steps would be to make sure we get the different engineering committees engaged, and produce the documents that support those initiatives," Congdon predicted.

"We are very pleased that the committee developed this M2M standard quickly with effective collaboration with other international Standards Development Organizations throughout the process," said Cheryl Blum, TIA Vice President for Technology and Standards."

Launch of oneM2M - July 24, 2012 Press Release:
New Global Organization will Create Technical Specifications to Ensure that
Machine-to-Machine Communications Can Effectively Operate on a Worldwide Scale

  RFID Recruiters believes that M2M is still in the very early and formative stages of development as a family of technologies that will evolve dramatically over the next several years.  Clearly, the roles of mobile networking service providers and equipment providers will be very important factors in the evolution of M2M.  Of equal or potentially even greater impact will be the role of early adopter enterprises throughout vertical industries.  These early adopters will lead the way in determining the most valuable existing and new workflows to be automated with M2M applications. Most importantly, we believe that the people who will most influence, shape, and harness the value to be realized with M2M will be the people with the technology and business expertise needed to turn technology into successful business models, applications, and platforms.

  Coupled with the wide area mobile networking capabilities of M2M RFID Recruiters believes RFID including NFC, plus sensors, will become increasingly important building blocks that both extend the reach of IT to more users for more applications and that integrate the physical world with the digital realm of information systems.  The applications for RFID, NFC, sensors, and M2M plus Cloud computing and networking will be nearly endless.

For more information regarding how RFID, NFC, sensors, and M2M will merge with Cloud computing and networking technologies to extend and dramatically transform the reach of Information Technology overall and thereby establish the platform for Pervasive Computing and Ubiquitous Networking click here:  http://www.rfidrecruiters.com/Moving_into_RFID.htm

  The current, emerging, and potential applications of RF and Cloud technologies are now generating a demand for experienced wireless and Cloud professionals who are capable of creating and harnessing innovative value propositions. Both provider and user organizations are seeking employees with RF and Cloud experience to harness the productivity benefits and competitive advantages made possible by RF technologies (including RFID, NFC, sensor, and M2M) in conjunction with Cloud computing and networking. Additionally, many of the best and brightest individuals with general IT, supply chain, and related expertise are re-focusing their energies to participate in the high growth anticipated for RF and Cloud technology adoption.

  RFID Recruiters and our NFC Recruiters, Sensor Recruiters, M2M Recruiters, and RF Cloud Recruiters business units are committed to contributing to the development of the RFID, NFC, sensor, M2M, and Cloud industries in a way that makes businesses more productive and people happier.

  The mission of RFID Recruiters, NFC Recruiters, Sensor Recruiters, M2M Recruiters, and RF Cloud Recruiters is to help the best companies and the best individuals find one another in a manner that brings into being the best RFID, NFC, sensor, M2M, and Cloud technologies, products, applications, and services.