Everyone is talking about the Internet of Things. Connected devices are gaining momentum in homes, businesses and public service infrastructure. These devices are not only creating new possibilities for how we work and communicate but fundamentally transforming every aspect of life, from automated drug administration devices to traffic lights and air sensors in buildings, writes Paul German, the vice president EMEA of Certes Networks. (more…)
May 27, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
According to reports published by ARUP the global Smart Cities Market is expected to grow to $1,134.84 billion by 2019. While this looks promising for all involved, writes David Rolfe, the Big Data Platform product manager at Openet, the challenges in supporting a connected city are a lot more complex than simply implementing the latest technology. (more…)
May 9, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
In the second part of his blog, Dennis Poulsen, the general manager of Spirent’s IoT Connectivity Products, concludes his exploration of the IoT options for the OEM. The most immediate solution would be to buy SIM card reader components and build them into the product, which can then be sold as “Internet enabled”. The customer then buys the device, chooses a suitable mobile service provider and a suitable connection package, inserts the SIM card and configures and customizes the product themselves. (more…)
May 5, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
The Internet of Things (IoT) has continued to snowball over the past couple of years, and it’s the buzzword that continues to dominate the tech world. It was alarming just how big a focus it was at Mobile World Congress this year, writes Robin Kent, the director of European operations at Adax. (more…)
April 21, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
Event date: 12-13 April, 2016
ExCeL Centre, London, UK
The Internet of Things is radically redefining just what it means to be connected. It will present unmissable, undreamt-of possibilities for businesses all over the world. But it will need explaining. (more…)
March 14, 2016
Posted by: IoT global network
February 24, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
Forty years ago, I worked on software that monitored and controlled its physical environment, in telephone exchanges, writes Dr. Chris Harding is Director for Interoperability at The Open Group. I have been away from that world for a long time, but am now becoming involved with similar problems, as I work on standards for the Internet of Things (IoT). (more…)
February 18, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
IIoT is already having a significant impact on industrial performance in two primary areas: asset performance management and operator efficiency, writes Dave Sutton, a product marketing manager at Schneider Electric, in the second part of his blog on Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things. (more…)
February 12, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
The first wave of connectivity to serve the continent of Africa was mobile communications; in fact more than double the population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has mobile phone access compared with access to paved roads, writes Stephen Stewart, the regional director for Africa at Eseye. (more…)
February 8, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
IT is no longer the sole guardian of technology in the business. From IP enabled turnstiles to smart manufacturing systems that continuously monitor and optimise performance and smart buildings with IP connected environmental controls, the Internet of Everything (IoE) is slowly but inexorably expanding across every business environment, writes John Pepper, the chief executive and founder of Managed 24/7.
Right now, however, these deployments remain completely separate from the core business network – and IT has little or no visibility of IoE deployments. While companies are gaining operational benefits, these siloed deployments also represent significant operational risk. Security is the primary concern, but organisations are also missing out on essential business information. By failing to consolidate IoE deployments into the core network, organisations cannot enable CxOs to take advantage of a depth of real time analytics that should be informing changes to every part of the building, estate and production systems.
It is, therefore, no surprise that there is a growing CxO push to integrate IoE into the existing corporate network, not least to exploit IT’s security expertise. Few CxOs even consider any difficulties arguing, quite reasonably, that there is little or no difference between an IP enabled temperature sensor and any cloud based application. However, there is one fundamental and essential difference to consider: IT systems are still managed on the basis of 99.999% – five nines – availability; IoE demands 100% availability – failure is simply not an option.
A small but growing minority of IT organisations have therefore begun to explore the value of consolidating monitoring tools to move beyond break/fix to a predictive model that delivers 100% uptime. End to end monitoring that accurately predicts trends in performance combined with self-healing technologies both prevent problems and enable organisations to achieve far more effective IT utilisation.
Given the speed with which devices are becoming Internet enabled, there is no time to delay. But organisations have some tough questions to consider. From ownership to budget, capacity planning to network audit and security, organisations need to determine where the responsibility lies for this new connected model – and, critically, ensure IT embraces the predictive approach required to deliver the 100% availability now required of these essential systems.
The role of IT is changing; today’s requirement to support servers is evolving fast to one that is about managing millions of connected devices, from coffee machines to life saving NHS equipment. IT needs to step up quickly to embrace this critical, predictive model for every aspect of the corporate infrastructure.
February 5, 2016
Posted by: George Malim