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THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO PLANNING IoT TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS 406 839 9000 l info arrowsolutionsgroup com arrowsolutionsgroup com
Table of Contents Introduction to IoT 03 The Importance of IoT Implementations for Businesses 04 The Important Considerations for Planning Your Technology Implementation 06 Addressing the Security Issues 06 Identity Management 06 Server and OS Security 07 Data Security 07 Network Security 07 Creating the Right IoT Infrastructure 08 The Smart Sensors 08 Embracing Edge Computing 08 Using Cloud and the Data Center Intelligently 09 Selecting the Right IoT Cloud Platform 09 Type of Platform 10 Scalability 11 Integration of Third Party Solutions 11 Ease of Use 12 Security of Data 12 Creating an Upgradable IoT Infrastructure 13 Internet of Things and Its Impact on Various Industries 14 Final Thoughts 14
INTRODUCTION TO IoT IoT Internet of Things is one of the most transformative I T Trends taking shape right now across a variety of industries If the internet you have been using so far is the internet of humans then internet of things must refer to the interconnectivity of things wherein human involvement is not mandatory or needed Take the example of a smart home where a motion sensing device senses someone outside the house at 2 am in the morning and turns on the porch light to give the impression that someone s home and awake Here a motion sensor talked to a porch light without human intervention that s internet of things Extrapolate the idea and think of smart cities smart cars smart roads intelligent systems etc 03
THE IMPORTANCE OF IoT IMPLEMENTATIONS FOR BUSINESSES As convenient as it will make the lives of individuals at homes implementation of the internet of things in businesses will change the world as we know it It is nearly impossible to think how much IoT will change the planet and how companies operate Some bene ts that businesses will obtain from the implementation of IoT include but are not limited to 04 Reduced operation and production costs Improved logistics solutions Reduced impact on the environment Improved customer experience Better disaster preparedness Faster disaster responsiveness Improved disaster recovery
Let s take a simple example It is Christmas season and there is packed crowd inside a retail store when the store runs out of stock of baby diapers The store manager is too busy handling the crowd to order more inventory of diapers but with IoT implementation The system generates a purchase order Forwards it to the supplier The supplier s system receives the purchase order A robot in the warehouse loads the re quired stock on a supply truck The driverless supply truck comes to the retail store and delivers the stock It might seem like a stretch but that s where we are heading very soon with the implementation of IoT the IoT enables myriad of applications ranging from the micro to macro and from the trivial to critical Brendan O Brien In the healthcare industry a monitoring device on a patient s wrist might detect his heart rate send the readings to a quick response team and a message to the personal physician of the patient Healthcare institutions will be ghting to develop innovative IoT capabilities to establish a competitive advantage in the marketplace This is just an understandable explanation of how IoT could impact businesses The real implementation of the internals of a company will have unprecedented impacts 05
THE IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS FOR PLANNING YOUR TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS Now if you own a business you will have to start taking the needed steps today However the decision of IoT implementation should not be random and out of the blue It requires proper planning on your part to bene t from IoT and implement the changes phase by phase to reach a point where your business depends on IoT technologies Addressing the Security Issues The rst step in implementing any internet related technology is to identify the security related issues and risks Security is the most important consideration when applying IoT technology Here are the security related factors when planning IoT implementations Identity Management 06 If you are clear on the idea of the internet of things by now you should realize that identity management is much more complicated and complicated issue when it comes to the internet of things This time it is not the issue of identifying people it is more about identifying things For example the protection of ePHI electronic protected health information is a large concern for healthcare facilities today The risks will increase and their detection will become more involved when it is things communicating with things to access protected health information of patients The more important concept that you have to work with is IDoT Identity of Things IDoT starts with naming every device registering every IoT device for creating procedures that determine IoT device access control
Server and OS Security Many people confuse server security with operating system security but they are two different concepts that need to be tackled separately The protection of your server comes second on the list after operating system security Your server is running on an operating system and thus it is the OS that needs to be secured to form a stable base for the server From encrypted lesystems and dif cult passwords to monitoring of any intrusions into the system you have to consider everything to ensure operating system security Furthermore you have to protect your servers through proper updates and security patches You have to know the many protocols that protect your servers from attacks Translation rules for Firewall port address are highly recommended for the security of servers It is best that you hire industry experts to ensure server and operating system protection 07 Data Security Network Security When it comes to securing the data you rst have to divide it into two different categories and then come up with solutions for each One type of data is the data that is ying through ports cables and waves in the air The second category is the data that you have stored on your storage devices Data includes everything that you can save starting from something as simple as your login ID and passwords to complicated settings of your computer systems and various certi cates Whether it is the ying form of data or the storage form make encryption your friend IoT is going to bring new challenges for network security management Many of the hacks that take place around the world are due to the weaknesses of the networks You have to make network security one of your priorities and think beyond virtual private networks Yes they are a part of the solution but they should not be considered the only solution You have to realize that when you are using a virtual private network service you are introducing a third party into your business matters In short your data is now exposed to the hackers in two different ways the shortfalls of your system and the shortcomings of your VPN service provider s network
Creating the Right IoT Infrastructure Once you have identi ed the risks and weak points that you have to protect before implementing IoT you now have to lay the foundation of a healthy IoT infrastructure You have to know the components that form this infrastructure and themethods that are used for securing those elements while keeping them performing at their optimum performance levels The Smart Sensors We have moved beyond sensors and into the world of smart sensors Today s sensors have to be smart in how they collect data and transmit information Take the example of smartphones that can now detect their orientation using various small components on them e g gyroscope compass barometer etc Similarly a healthcare sensor should do more than just collect information about the patient while resting on patient s body A smart health sensor will notify the doctor if it has not received any information from the patient for a speci c time i e maybe the patient is inactive or has forgotten to wear the sensor Embracing Edge Computing One aspect of using smart sensors is edge computing As the name suggests edge computing means the computation of any collected data needs to be done at the edge When a sensor collects information it sends it to the central location the cloud server where the computation takes place and a corresponding response is generated However this is a long process and requires more network resources to be used i e bandwidth If the sensors are equipped with edge computing technology information can be computed right at the edge and a quick response can be generated to avoid delays Such technology will allow medical sensors to respond to emergency situations much more quickly In the nancial industries it will enable eld workers to offer quick nancial solutions to customers rather than waiting to get back to the workstations and process customer information 08
Using Cloud and the Data Center Intelligently Edge computing is not a replacement of cloud technology by any means it is only complementary to it When creating an infrastructure you will have to allocate the resources so you can use the edge computing and data center components intelligently Edge computing is more suited for scenarios where an immediate response is mandatory However there are speci c tasks where more computational power is needed and this is when the data has to reach the powerful computers of the datacenters Some functions are best taken care of when both the immediate processing at the edge and detailed computation at the data center level are executed SELECTING THE RIGHT IoT CLOUD PLATFORM For your IoT infrastructure to work you will have to choose the right IoT platform rst Before you even pick the right platform you will have to understand the concept of an IoT platform The idea of an IoT platform can be confusing even for those who follow technology pretty well There is no set de nition of IoT platform because there are different types of platforms that support the IoT components in different ways It could be a software solution that supports the products components settings and applications of only a particular vendor It could be a suite of hardware and software technologies that allow some level of integration of third party applications and hardware components An IoT platform could also be in the form of a software solution that s universal i e it allows the integration of applications IoT hardware and other components irrespective of the vendor Software updates will play a signi cant role in accommodating the new solutions on the platform Here is how you have to pick the right IoT cloud platform 09
Type of Platform The rst thing you will have to decide is the type of IoT platform that will meet your needs The different types of platforms that you need to choose from include IaaS Backends Consumer Software Extensions M2M Platforms Hardware speci c software based platforms The easiest one to understand from the four is the consumer software extension platform wherein it is one of the biggest operating system providers that extends its software offerings to allow the integration of IoT components Take the example of Microsoft as it adds more applications to its repository to make more and more IoT components compatible with its operating system M2M is the type of platform where it is only the connectivity of IoT components that are supported by the platform but there is no support for computation and processing of other vendors 10
Scalability Scalability does not only mean that your platform should allow you to add more components to your IoT network An essential aspect of scalability is the convenience with which you can scale your existing system to higher levels For example if you have a healthcare institute with hundreds of devices connected through an IoT platform and you want to scale it up you should be able to do it without any downtime Keep in mind that any downtime can be risky and life threatening for patients at a healthcare facility Integration of Third Party Solutions This is the most critical aspect of any IoT platform today and also the most signi cant challenge that the platform developers have to face Think about the complexity of an IoT platform where hundreds and thousands of different devices have to connect with each other Every device works with different sets of security protocols and using a different operating system Making these devices communicate with each other is not easy The task becomes even more dif cult when a business utilizes software hardware etc solutions from a variety of third party solution providers Let us use an example to understand what makes the integration of third party solutions so tricky on an IoT system ABC makes security cameras Security cameras can be controlled using a smartphone app that only runs on Apple devices The video from security cameras is stored in a format that your web based cloud storage platform does not support for online viewing The actual IoT communication network will be much more complicated and confusing to understand that the example given above However it is inevitable from the above example that making these different solutions work in harmony is a huge challenge 11
Ease of Use Your IoT platform should also be easy to use First there should be no compatibility issues Second when it comes to developing new modules to go onto the system the developers should not feel lost Adding new components to the system should be a breeze like plug and play devices When technical faults arise they should be easy to x Security of Data Data security as stated above is the most prominent concern that needs to be addressed rst when you are implementing IoT into your business The protection of your data depends signi cantly on the type of platform you choose If you have selected a platform that only provides you with the hardware component of your IoT service you can t expect much concerning security from this service provider You must con rm what the security protocols are that secure your data as it rests on the servers of your platform provider 12
CREATING AN UPGRADABLE IoT INFRASTRUCTURE An essential aspect of an IoT infrastructure is that it has to be ready for upgrades Making hardware and software upgrades of the infrastructure should not be too complicated Here are the three critical factors that control an upgradable IoT infrastructure The software that supports the IoT infrastructure has to be designed with maintenance in mind When a x has to be performed it should only be delivered to one or desired component of the software not the software as a whole The software should be modular allowing you to update only the component that needs to be updated without impacting the performance of others The software design should be preventive For example the modularity of the software that controls a speci c component of the IoT network should limit the impact of an issue to that component only If a component has problems it must not impact the entire system with it When it comes to upgrading the software it should support big and small upgrades When the entire software needs to upgrade it usually requires the whole system to be restarted Take the example of your smartphone that has to be reset when a signi cant update of the software arrives However small updates of the software do not require your mobile phone to be restarted Similarly the software that supports your IoT infrastructure should allow both types of upgrades 13
INTERNET OF THINGS AND ITS IMPACT ON VARIOUS INDUSTRIES One must understand that internet of things is not a fad that will pass away soon It is here to stay and change the world entirely When things start to communicate with each other without human intervention the impact will be huge in the lives of individuals and how businesses operate Almost every industry will be affected and the adjustments to accommodate IoT implementations will have to be made promptly Here is how IoT will impact the various industries The Banking Industry Contactless payment systems are the most common type of implementation of IoT in the banking and nancing industry The wearable bands allowing people to make payments are cost effective for the banks However banks will have to work on more robust ecosystems to support more of such devices Believe it or not some banks have successfully worked on mobile ATMs i e ATMs that will go to the customers rather than customers going to them One such implementation of the concept has been made by Idea Bank They have multiple vehicles with ATMs on them going to customers so they can withdraw money when needed 14 The Telecommunication Industry Telecommunication industry will also have to focus on its infrastructure and partnerships to know how it can best use IoT technology First the telecommunication industry has to work toward creating IoT platforms that allow the connectivity of various devices irrespective of the vendors that make them The telecommunication industry also has a huge role to play in facilitating edge computing in sensors that are located far away from the datacenters They have to nd ways to not only enable communication between these situated sensors remotely but also bundle process information in such a way that a response can be triggered without human intervention
The Healthcare Industry If there is an industry that will be revolutionized entirely as a result of the implementations of IoT it s the healthcare industry By improving communication between doctors and patients through sensors that collect and transmit information continuously a lot of the current costs can be avoided For example the patient does not have to visit the doctor regularly and with preventive medication illnesses can be stopped from getting into the worst phases where the costs are enormous for patients The use of IoT within hospitals means every patient can be served at the same time without delays and human interventions In fact all the information about a patient will already be in the systems before the patient even steps into the hospital This will help the patient receive utmost care on urgent basis This will result in improved patient experience which will be the competitive edge for healthcare business in the coming times FINAL THOUGHTS Internet of things is not just a concept anymore The implementations of IoT are in progress but the service providers products creators and software developers are only dealing with the security and deployment related issues at this time This is because they don t want to experiment with incomplete solutions because the nature of IoT is such that a slight security aw can result in irrevocable losses While the IoT platform providers iron the creases out of their solutions you as a business should start integrating the IoT components into your existing infrastructure slowly 15
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