Member Article

IoT doesn’t have to be risky business

By Hubert da Costa, VP EMEA, Cradlepoint

A new generation of connected intelligent devices – collectively known as the Internet of Things or IoT – offers vast opportunities for organisations of all sizes and in every sector to improve internal efficiencies, serve customers better, enter new markets or build new business models.

As more IoT devices come online every day, the way we drive our cars, manage our homes and receive healthcare is evolving fast. Meanwhile, in the world of business, companies are using connected devices to create more efficient production systems and supply chains. From tracking shipments across the world to monitoring gas and oil pumps in the field, even the farming industry is digitally tracking livestock to better monitor location, health and behaviours.

With the number of connected devices expected to hit 50 billion by 2020, chances are if your business isn’t using the IoT today it soon will be – and so will your suppliers and customers. But while the IoT offers significant opportunities for the enterprise, it also poses risks that need to be addressed fast.

**Not quite standard procedure **

As the IoT expands into more verticals and applications and the number of new players entering the IoT space brings additional communications protocols and other technological variances into the mix, securing the enterprise network is set to become an increasingly complicated affair.

Currently, some layers of the IoT technology stack have no standards while others have multiple competing standards with no obvious winner. Until industry consortiums are able to implement common standards and protocols, this lack of uniformity presents a major hurdle for enterprises that need to assure system interoperability to support the failsafe interchange of services, knowledge, data and communications.

To leverage the benefits of IoT, organisations will have to take steps to secure the enterprise network. Implementing an underlying infrastructure that delivers full device visibility and keeps IoT devices separate in segmented safety zones.

It’s all about the data

From the app to the sensor, data transmission is what the IoT is all about. At last data generated remotely by wearables, sensors, smart devices and other monitoring systems can now be gathered, analysed and responded to in real-time.

And that’s ushering in an era that extends interoperability beyond the walls of the traditional enterprise to link customers, suppliers and partners in ways that make entirely new business models possible.

This monumental shift to a brand new data-centric world means companies will need to consider how they restructure networks to cope with the growing influx of data streams and workloads.

But that’s not all; enterprise networks will also need to be adjusted to cope with the fact that the connected organisation’s most important network activity will increasingly take place at the Network Edge.

Closer to the edge

When it comes to performing powerful real-time analytics, organisations will need to seek out efficient and effective ways to conduct data analytics and manage machine intelligence closer to the Network Edge – which is where data generated by IoT devices is captured.

The benefits of this approach are twofold. Firstly, processing closer to the network Edge significantly reduces opportunities for data to be compromised. Secondly, processing big workloads at the network’s Edge reduces the volume of data that needs to be backhauled to enterprise.

Revisiting legacy network architectures not only makes it possible for enterprises to take digital transformation to the next level; for example, leveraging cloud apps that make it easier to interpret and act on big data. It also paves the way for ensuring that traffic can be processed, relayed and acted upon without leaving its original location.

Building your IoT team

With IoT deployments on the up, enterprises will face some critical decisions around whether it’s better to go it alone and invest considerable and time developing IoT projects in-house, or purchase a ready-made IoT solution.

It’s not an easy choice but with the IoT expanding so rapidly businesses can’t afford to rely on ad hoc solutions that were never designed with longevity, scalability or ROI in mind.

Using a ready-built out IoT platform will make it easier to get actionable value sooner. But given the complexities that surround areas like data processing, analytics, interoperability and security, most organisations will need to work with an experienced partner that is able to provide solutions engineered with the realities of today’s enterprise networks in mind.

When evaluating potential partners to assist with the implementation of IoT projects, enterprises will need to assess if a provider’s solution simplifies the deployment and management of IoT technologies, ensures the IoT does not pose a business critical security risk and enables your infrastructure is able to cope with the massive data loads associated with the IoT.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Cradlepoint .