A survey by ITWeb found that printers and office equipment are among the “top” ‘Internet of Things’ (IOT) deployments by local organisations.
The survey, undertaken alongside Infoblox, was conducted due to the “tremendous buzz” around IOT, and wanted to “find out if South African enterprise networks are ready for a surge in IOT deployments”. It found that 72 percent of respondents used office equipment and printers as part of IOT deployments, while 43 percent used office security.
A third of respondents also “do not know how many IP addresses their organisation currently has on their network”, with 34 percent reporting their company had “up to 100 addresses”. 60 percent of respondents stated that “operation efficiencies” are the “top driver” for increased use of IOT, while 57 percent named cost efficiency and 40 percent “their organisation’s desire to collect more data across their business”.
In terms of concerns about IOT, 58 percent named security, while 45 percent named budget constraint as their main concern. 44 percent believe their networking department “will likely receive more budget” due to IOT requirements by next year, while four percent think this is “not at all likely”. Finally, 54 percent don’t have “sufficient policies in place” to ensure IOT deployments are “compliant with their network architecture”.
[adrotate banner=”248″]
Infoblox’ Cricket Liu, Chief Domain Name System Architect, commented that companies “should not be making a list of IOT devices to deploy, but should rather be determining what their business requirements are”, adding that “if an organisation’s business needs can be met by deploying a certain type of IOT device – sensors, security systems, etcetera – then the business should investigate the deployment of such”.
Liu added that there are “definite consequences” of not knowing the number of IP addresses that a business has, as “presumably these organisations are not monitoring or managing their IOT devices either, which is disturbing”. IOT devices “can facilitate remote control and monitoring that might not be practical any other way.
“The industry creating IOT devices needs to begin designing them with security in mind, and the internet community and these manufacturers should embark on an effort to develop both protocols and best practices that will ease the development of secure IOT devices. Allowing IOT deployments to proceed without sufficient safeguards will lead to security and stability problems, not to mention a management nightmare”.