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
Application context and security requirement
A leading manufacturer of electrical systems for railways wanted to protect their know-how invested in their so ware against counterfeiting, reverse engineering, and tampering. Wibu developed a technology – CodeMeter® Embedded – protecting the integrity of the machine code.
Challenge
The vendor manufactures a real-time controller for the electric power system of trains. The unit is therefore used in harsh conditions with public safety implications. Even though it employs failsafes, a power outage can cause inconvenience for passengers, and could lead to delays across the entire network, and cause other safety concerns. The challenge is not just building a robust controlling so ware for the power converter system, but also making sure it stays secure from local and remote cyber-attacks.
January 27, 2016
Posted by: Wibu-Systems USA, Inc.
2015 was a big year for the Internet of Things, it was the first year that we really saw this technology come into play in both businesses and the home, writes Tim Herbert, the senior vice president, research and market intelligence at CompTIA. IoT has been talked about for a few years now but it’s only recently that implementation has started to take effect, and soon we will be seeing that everything that can be connected, will be connected. (more…)
January 19, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
In the second part of his blog on IoT security, Rob Greer, the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of products at ForeScout Technologies explains how organisations can stay ahead of the IoT invasion. (more…)
January 12, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
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…)
January 11, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
While the IoT can quite rightly be criticised for the amount of hype it has generated in the last two or three years, look a little more closely and you will find a range of practical applications, writes James Wickes, the co-founder of Cloudview. (more…)
January 8, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
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…)
January 5, 2016
Posted by: George Malim
Bluetooth has gone through a number of hype cycles since it was first released, writes Mike Crooks, the head of Innovation at the Mubaloo Innovation Lab. (more…)
December 10, 2015
Posted by: George Malim
The IoT is set to have significant impact on the way we do things today; at home, at work, while shopping, even in manufacturing and medicine, writes Suresh Srinivasan, the director of quality assurance for Virtusa. (more…)
December 9, 2015
Posted by: George Malim
In its report, The Identity of Things (IDoT) for the Internet of Things, analyst firm Gartner lays out how it believes the Internet of Things (IoT), or what is often now referred to as the Internet of Everything (IoE), cannot and will not prosper unless organisations knuckle down and come to grips with how to manage multiple identities, writes Neil Chapman, the senior vice president and managing director for EMEA of ForgeRock. (more…)
December 3, 2015
Posted by: George Malim