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How will IoT manage everything?

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.

 

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February 5, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

IOT helps financial services re-engage their customers

The Internet of Things (IoT) has truly begun to take off with enabled devices including smart watches, smart meters and connected cars as well as smartphones and tablets, writes David Watkins, the service delivery director at Virtus Data Centres. However, technology and appliances are not the only industries affected by this growing trend. In fact, IoT’s potential reaches far beyond, and could play a major role in helping disconnected industries re-engage with their customers. (more…)

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February 3, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

The reality distortion field of IoT
By 2020, Gartner predicts that 20.8 billion connected things will be in use worldwide, across consumer and enterprise use cases, writes Mike Crooks, the head of Innovation at thr Mubaloo Innovation Lab. This year alone, Gartner expects 5.5 million new things will get connected every day, leading to services spending around IoT reaching $235 billion by the year end.
Everywhere you look, there is a vast amount of hype about what IoT delivers, where the market is heading and what can be achieved. We’d be forgiven for thinking that IoT is already a complete world changer, that is fundamentally changing the dynamics of how we live and work. 

In some cases, of course, it’s true. The average person may never be aware of the impact that IoT is having.

We live in a world that is more connected than ever. The farming industry is going through a large change, where its equipment is becoming ever smarter and more autonomous. Cars are starting to have autonomous capabilities, with the ability to self diagnose and trigger maintenance alerts. Smart thermostats are being installed in an increasing number of homes. All the big technology companies are turning more attention, and more money into the entire IoT ecosystem.

Yet, this would be masking over the reality of IoT. IoT has the potential to help us drive improvements in virtually every aspect of the way in which we live and work; but questions remain as to whether the world needs a tweeting toaster or a smart wardrobe.

In reality, how can we be close to the vision of IoT, when so much of the world and so many companies still aren’t properly utilising or understanding technologies that have been around for decades? The majority of companies hear terms like Cloud, Big Data and Mobile and admit that they are still stuck with legacy infrastructure, with no real clue as to how to move forward.

One of the big blockers for IoT over the past few years is that every company with a vested interest in it, has wanted to control it. This has led to any external customer, be it a consumer wanting a smart home, or an enterprise wanting smart infrastructure, having to use multiple systems. 

Many of the IoT deployments at the moment focus on the dots that get joined within an organisation, connecting their own assets and their own infrastructure. The vision of IoT that has been propagated over the past few years is that systems will share data, so that across the entire chain, transformation will take place.

Larger companies in every industry are currently struggling with a very real issue of transformation at the moment. In many cases, companies are skirting around their core infrastructure and using middleware as a way of doing iterative changes. IoT for the majority of companies is something that they see as a distant possibility on their roadmap, not something that they are able to pay much attention to now.

One of the major challenges with the reality of IoT is this; companies still aren’t able to properly understand the data being generated at the moment. It doesn’t matter how much infrastructure companies put in place or how connected the world may be, if they aren’t able to use that information properly, the ability to collect data is irrelevant

IoT is as much about what is happening in the background to understand and process the information as it is about the way in which that data is collected. If we look at the consumer market, Waze is, in many ways the perfect example of IoT in action. It turns millions of cars into a live data feed of road conditions and traffic information. This is fed through the app to help people optimise their driving, which is also fed into Google’s services, to the extent that Google Now is able to recommend that you leave earlier for a meeting.

It’s the intelligence that makes this useful and powerful, but this is precisely where companies struggle. The choices of whether to utilise cellular M2M, Sigfox, Wi-Fi technologies or Bluetooth; the sensors that you deploy — all of it means nothing without being able to analyse the data in real time.

In the enterprise space, this means that we will continue to see closed networks, where the value of deployment is to that company, and that company alone. Some data feeds may be opened up, but a vast amount of data will be kept private. Companies may not want to open up data about predictive maintenance for their assets or equipment, for understandable competitive reasons.

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February 2, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Healthcare things are getting better at supporting wellness

One of the many sizable challenges in healthcare today is ensuring patients are taking care of themselves: taking their medication on time, getting enough sleep, doing what the doctor has advised, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, writes Mathew Kuruvilla, the chief innovation officer of Ness Software Engineering Services. (more…)

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January 22, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

2016 – the year geospatial analytics makes a comeback

Stuart Wilson, the vice president for EMEA at Alteryx, highlights how the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to propel businesses to discover geospatial analytics all over again this year. (more…)

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January 15, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

IoT Global Innovation Forum

Event date: June 15-16, 2016
Barcelona, Spain

The 2nd Annual IoT Global Innovation Forum, June 15-16, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, brings together leading technology innovators, business strategists and developers from around the world for two days of focused networking and information sharing at the IoT cutting edge. Expert speakers will discuss the latest applications for traditional commercial processes as well as new business models and opportunities within the emerging Internet of Things ecosphere.  (more…)

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January 14, 2016

Posted by: IoT global network

Rob Greer, ForeScout Technologies

Rob has served as chief marketing officer and senior vice president of products at ForeScout since June 2015. Prior to joining ForeScout, he served as vice president and general manager of the Network Security division at HP Software, where he was responsible for determining product strategy, delivery, customer success and overall P&L. Before that, Greer served in numerous leadership roles at Symantec, ClearApp (acquired by Oracle), SonicWALL, and Ignyte Technology, where he was founder and chief executive officer. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from San Jose State University.

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January 11, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Don’t get caught with your IoT exposed – Part One

We live on a hyper-connected planet, writes Rob Greer the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of products at ForeScout Technologies. Just over 40% of the world is online, with an average of five connected devices per US household. And now, with the Internet of Things (IoT) in full swing among individuals and organisations, those numbers are about to explode. There will be 30 billion connected things by 2020, compared to a relatively paltry 13 billion connected devices in 2015. (more…)

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Posted by: George Malim

IoT – the hope beyond the hype

In 2015, the Internet of Things received the anti-award for being one of the most over-hyped emerging technologies in analyst firm Gartner’s Hype Cycle. In fact, IoT has held its position at the summit of the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ for two years running now, writes Darren Thomson, the chief technology officer and vice president of technology EMEA at Symantec. So when will we move beyond the hype? (more…)

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January 5, 2016

Posted by: George Malim

Life on the cusp of Industry 4.0 – the fourth Industrial Revolution

Manufacturing has come a long way since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century, writes Martin Hill, the vice president of marketing at Epicor International. The second Industrial Revolution in the 1900s saw the introduction of mass production. In the late 1960s, electronics and the automation of production lines entered the industrial environment. Now, we are benefiting from robotics and are beginning to discover the value of 3D printing. We are on the cusp of Industry 4.0, the fourth Industrial Revolution. (more…)

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January 4, 2016

Posted by: George Malim