The tech industry comments on the challenges of IoT

By Kirti Khanna

This Saturday marks the sixth Global Internet of Things Day and a selection of thought leaders from the tech industry have looked at the challenges it is posing and how they can be overcome. 

Ken Hosac, VP Business Development at Cradlepoint

"The rapid rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping the way retailers serve customers and run their operations. It’s an exciting time, but it presents a unique challenge. The amount of data that will be generated by IoT devices in the retail sphere will grow exponentially faster than the networks' ability to process it. To accommodate the escalation of the IoT in retail, as well as to future-proof their networks, retailers should be looking at the benefits of always-on connectivity combined with a failover solution to ensure business continuity. IoT will bring with it a greater demand for connectivity and service providers will need to fulfil this."

Michael Hack, SVP EMEA Operations at Ipswitch

“There is a concern amongst IT professionals about how existing corporate networks are expected to cope with the enormous amount of extra strain they will come under from the increasing number of connected devices. However if organisations learn to monitor their networks properly, not only can the current IoT storm be weathered, but businesses can begin building towards a brighter, more flexible future across their entire business network.

“Efficient use of infrastructure, applications and network monitoring tools can allow the IT team to identify problems that only occur intermittently or at certain times by understanding key trends in network performance. This could be anything from daily spikes caused by employees all trying to remotely login at the start of the day, to monthly or annual trends only identified by monitoring activity over longer periods of time. Knowing what these trends are and when they will occur gives the team essential insight, allowing them to plan ahead and allocate bandwidth accordingly.”

Tony Martin, UK & IE Managing Director, FalconStor

"We are all aware the Internet of Things is currently causing a massive data explosion. The connectivity of cars, houses, cities and objects is generating a huge amount of data which organisations simply can’t handle. Due to this explosion in data, a lot of data is being discarded and not used. If organisations want to benefit from this data it needs to be stored, managed and analysed correctly. Only then will organisations realise its full potential."

Geraldine Osman, VP of International Marketing at Nexsan

“Global IoT Day is designed as a gentle reminder to CIOs to discuss the growth of the Internet of Things and how it affects their company’s storage needs. New applications driven from mobile devices and Internet of Things, has brought a rapid surge in data that companies need to address. IoT brings a new dimension to how companies need to define their data and create specific strategies for how they store information. There is already wasted money being spent on storing infrequently accessed data on primary storage, which slows down backups and raises costs – this is only increasing with the ever-growing data coming from the Internet of Things. Companies need to ensure they are storing this data on appropriate storage which is backed up onto their secondary storage system."

Doug Rich, VP EMEA at Tintri

"The Internet of Things (IoT) has signified the explosion of data that we have seen over the last decade. We are now faced with producing and managing huge volumes of data on a daily basis. As a result, storage is playing an increasingly important role in the modern data centre. With the number of virtualised workloads jumping from 2 percent to 75 percent in the last ten years, organisations need to make sure their storage buying decisions are based on the amount of data they are managing on a daily basis. A virtualised workload requires a storage solution that is purposely built to handle and support modern applications. With million of devices now connected all over the world, organisations need to make sure that they are equipped to store, locate and see real time analytics to understand the increasing amount of data they are producing. VM-aware storage enables organisations to see their data at the granular level, providing clear visibility in how to manage their data."

Daryl Miller, VP of Engineering at Lantronix

Steve Jobs was right when he said, 'Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.' This points to one reason why after so many years, the IoT is still in its infancy. Back in 2011, Cisco IBSG predicted that there would be 25 billion devices connected in the IoT by 2015, however recent figures from Gartner estimate that we have yet to pass 5 billion.

“While technologies like the Ethernet, Bluetooth and cellular have been around for decades, integrating IoT connectivity into millions of existing industrial devices is much more complex than it appears. The challenge is so difficult that many organisations attempt to build an IoT infrastructure from scratch, depleting a substantial amount of resources, only to fall short of their desired objectives.

“Companies need to keep the IoT simple by adapting their existing systems to become compatible with the IoT. This means that the functionality, design and continued use of critical systems won’t be impacted. For many engineers trying to meet tighter time to market deadlines with smaller design teams, using production-ready solutions from trusted best-of-breed partners can help to ensure that product development goals are met."

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