Gartner has highlighted the key technologies and trends that infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders must start preparing to support in their digital infrastructure in 2019. The findings, presented during Gartner’s IT Infrastructure, Operations, and Cloud Strategies Conference’, indicate that the Internet of Things (IoT) will have a critical impact on infrastructures across all industries.
“More than ever, I&O is becoming increasingly involved in unprecedented areas of the modern-day enterprise. The focus of I&O leaders is no longer to solely deliver engineering and operations, but instead deliver products and services that support and enable an organization’s business strategy,” said Ross Winser, senior research director at Gartner.
“The question is already becoming ‘How can we use capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI), network automation, or edge computing to support rapidly growing infrastructures and accomplish business needs?'”
Over the next few decades, everything in our world will be connected. All industries will be impacted and the IT teams supporting individual businesses and initiatives will need to be vigilant in IoT infrastructures and operations.
There’s a lot to love about what’s coming with IoT. Consider smart homes, health monitoring, conservation, personalized connections, and many types of efficiencies for businesses, organizations, and even government agencies responsible for their community.
Our customers are saying that despite all the positive aspects of the increased connectivity associated with the IoT, they still have some concerns. Mainly, how to build this transformation into their current network environment and infrastructure.
Many businesses are finding it more and more difficult to experience the full transformational potential of the IoT if they attempt to implement it on top of legacy infrastructure designed years ago for other specific tasks. In fact, 85 percent of business decision makers note legacy infrastructures as the key reason they’re not meeting full digital transformation potential.
Infrastructure considerations are primary concerns as other sectors continue to grow as a result of IoT. We’ve identified some of the components of infrastructure and its importance in the Internet of Things and share them here:
IoT and Big Data & Analytics.
The Internet of Things—which will connect all people and things to the Internet—is allowing us to generate more data than ever before and there’s no end in sight. The challenge will be coming up with efficient ways to transmit and store all this data.
IoT Cloud Computing.
Cloud computing involves delivering data, photos, videos, apps and more over the Internet to data centers. IoT is the connection of devices to the Internet and more and more items like kitchen appliances cars and heart monitors are being connected through the IoT.
Lots of the massive amount of data generated by the IoT is sent to the cloud so that the data can travel to its destination. Some popular IoT cloud platforms working effectively today include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud IoT, IBM Watson, and Salesforce IoT Cloud.
IoT Platforms.
IoT platforms connect all of a company’s devices to the cloud to work within the Internet of Things. That means all your hardware connects to the cloud via flexible connection options, expansive data processing, and enterprise-grade security components. IoT platforms play a pivotal role in real-time monitoring, remote control, rich data collection and more.
IoT security.
Each element in the IoT has the capability to transmit data over a network and that’s awesome. It can be a challenge, however, to ensure that all these devices are properly protected from the serious vulnerabilities they may be exposed to. Security issues such as device manufacturers rushing to market without thorough security measures, default passwords leading to security breaches and connecting legacy assets not designed for IoT are just a few security challenges.
The Internet of Things is an exciting element for the future of business. The transformation of business processes as well as consumer programs will radically change over the next few years. However, at least 61% of business leaders believe that they “have barely begun to scratch the surface of what IoT technologies can do for their business.”
If you’re feeling stuck in your journey and curious about your progress, test yourself and your organization with our Maturity Assessment, before completely revising a your infrastructure, especially because not all updated/refreshes don’t have to happen all at once. It’s a smart start to define the IoT goals and then review current infrastructure elements. Sometimes simply inserting a few new elements into existing workflows will work.
If a thorough review of a company’s infrastructure sounds too daunting, just step back and evaluate the long-term benefits. Usually, infrastructure improvements will create an environment of more ROI because IoT systems are optimized for current apps and technologies.
Major revisions don’t have to happen today. But it’s not too early to learn about the infrastructure you have in place and what it will take to get you IoT ready. Take the first step, test your progress across the IT Transformation continuum with this IT Maturity Assessment.