There is a lot of talk about different types of solutions based on IoT (Internet of Things). Much of this is driven by organizations that do not have a background from Internet solutions. They have little knowledge of the associated architecture and requirements for monitoring, integration and use of standards. One consequence of this is that many IoT solutions are struggling with one or more of four typical weaknesses:
Monitoring and administration
In the 80’s and early 90’s, this was typical of network equipment like switches and routers. With SNMP as a standard for monitoring, the equipment allowed for secure remote management. Today’s IoT solutions often lack both of these features.
Security
All equipment installed on a network is vulnerable. Especially for network attacks. Therefore, in order to prevent unauthorized access to the equipment and its data, security must be built-in. We have seen many examples that IoT equipment has been used to spread viruses or participate in DDoS attacks because the safety is inadequate.
Integration
IoT solutions are almost always part of a larger whole. It is therefore important that it supports standardized (and secure!) protocols. This allows you to easily integrate the collection of data from multiple vendors equipment and provide a good foundaton for your data analysis.
Today, a wide range of protocols, proprets or standards are used. Many solutions are also built as a complete one-supplier solution with equipment, administration and analysis from one supplier. These conditions make integrated solutions for a customer with multiple requirements a challenge.
Communication
The number of communication channels and protocols used is large. Often, it is based more on which vendor sells the solution than on the idea that the customer needs an integrated, comprehensive solution for their needs.
IoT requires careful planning and specification
Businesses that start with IoT solutions should therefore carefully consider these four areas in advance. They should also require suppliers to provide integrated, secure and manageable solutions. The IoT is therefore something that requires careful planning and specification, even though it feels like a good plan to just “get started” with a pilot and build on it eventually.
We therefore recommend that you build on a general architecture, and find out which solutions or products will be included in each part. This ensures that the architecture is complete, even before a pilot. But the pilot project itself may be limited to parts of the solution as long as you have a complete solution in mind. The figure below illustrates how Manag-E look for a complete architecture:
Many IoT projects start as a vertical column in the middle of this figure, with the most focus at the top and bottom. Ie on things (sensors, other devices) and on visualizing data and results of analysis of these (not least graphically). But by rollout, you must take into account everything else as well like development and testing environment, security and access control at all levels, management and control functions, and whether some of the data processing should be done at the “outer edge”, sometimes called “fog computing » or « edge computing ».
For more information about Manag-Es services and solutions related to IoT, contact salg@managenordic.no or call 67101490.
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