How to Make Your Network IoT Ready

By Mr. Subhasish Gupta, Regional Director– India & SAARC, Extreme Networks

Internet of Things may not exactly be a new concept for organizations. For years, technologies like M2M have been used exclusively by the operations teams and technicians within the company.

It is only recently that it became a mainstream term in the enterprise IT world. The early adopters of IoT have already witnessed its economic value while generating new sources of revenue and its ability to deliver more efficient and accurate results, Internet of Things is changing company processes and consumer interactions.

That said, IoT is fundamentally a ‘network-centric’ computer paradigm. To leverage the true value of Internet of Things, organizations need high-quality Wi-Fi and secure networks that offer consistent performance.

Legacy networks won’t be able to handle the requirements that IoT brings into the organization. We must start looking at networks from a broader perspective, as the network now needs to connect to a broader audience. Automation, scalability, application visibility & control, flexible management of the network—all become critical factors of successful Internet of Things projects.

Mr. Subhasish Gupta, Regional Director– India & SAARC, Extreme Networks

Here’s how enterprise networks should evolve as we embrace IoT.

Wi-Fi becomes the Foundation of IoT

In the Internet of Things era, we live in a world where everything is ‘connected’. So, staying ‘connected’ is the most important aspect, so that you’re able to effectively collect the data, analyze it and make smarter decisions. Though Wi-Fi as a technology has matured really well, many organizations tend to ignore the importance of a quality Wi-Fi network.

As wireless becomes the primary network of an organization, it’s vital to ensure its reliable performance and uptime, just as the wired network. Organizations must prepare to adopt 802.11ac Wave 2, the latest Wi-Fi standard, which allows IoT to run smoother.

Securing the WLAN

Security should be the top priority of IT while dealing with a tremendous amount of privacy information, customer information and sensitive information that needs to be protected. Secured data enhances the customer experience and protects the reputation and brand image of the company. Most of the Internet of Things devices, unfortunately, do not have any inherent security capabilities, which is why a shift of concern on WLAN security is the key challenge to overcome.

Unified Management is Necessary

Unified Network management has not been at par with the current requirements in the IT environment. The existing network management tools are not good enough to enhance the visibility. Often, identifying the problem in the data center takes more time than actually solving the problem. Improved networking tools can increase that visibility required for security and performance. They can also enable rapid identification of possible service outages, improve visibility into traffic flows across wired and wireless networks.

SDNs the Key Element of IoT

Ever since the rapid shift has occurred towards the Internet of Things, there has been an increase in the deployment of Software Defined Networking (SDN). SDN helps in centralized control while bringing flexibility and agility to the network. By allowing automated policy-based controls, SDN makes IoT easy to manage.

It helps in enabling service automation, which is a key factor influencing the optimization of Internet of Things. SDN also helps in improving application performance and reducing the downtime. Needless to say, SDN will help in reducing networking hardware investments, triggered by the use of IoT.