Estimates vary about the number of connected devices there will be as the internet of things shapes up – a recent Gartner estimate was 26 billion by 2020 — but everyone agrees there will be a ton.

The numbers are staggering even when it comes to personal electronic devices like smartphones, tablets and game consoles. Just five years ago, U.S. households averaged just one web-connected device, now the average is 5 or 6, according to  Deepfield CEO Craig Labovitz, whose company keeps track of the traffic flying around the web. But the really mind-blowing numbers are for the other devices — those that talk to each other, not to us. Gartner’s 26 billion number for example, doesn’t even count people-oriented smartphones and tablets.

So the endpoints may be cool and numerous, but the more interesting story will be how all the data they spew will be handled and how the internet infrastructure itself — with a big assist from cloud computing — will adapt to deal with it.

Prepping the cloud for the internet of things