IoT devices are growing by the thousands every day. Networks are gaining millions of devices every year and the total number is expected to top 31 billion by the end of 2025. Each of these devices are going to create complexity issues for networking administrators and engineers the world over. In this episode, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by networking legends Peter Welcher and Denise Donohue as they discuss the challenges that IoT is imposing on us all. This discuss the skills gap as well as security concerns as well as how to stay ahead of the deployment process.
IoT Is Going to Make Things More Difficult
IoT devices don’t start out as being overly complicated. Most of the enterprise-focused solutions are aimed at providing functionality for the lowest cost possible at scale. However, the compromises that must be made to save costs or the need for these devices to behave in a certain way often lead to issues with operations. It could be a quirky configuration need or a requirement for always-on connectivity that can lead to confusion.
Networking teams have to continually learn about how these devices work and gain new skills. Much of the basics of networking are still present but we also find that new solutions have new components and those new features lead to the most intense study. This is especially true for security teams as the attack surface increases exponentially with every new device added, especially if the security of those devices must be altered in order to make them easier to deploy and manage.
The other major change that networking teams need to be prepared for is the massive amount of data generated by IoT devices. This causes issues both for data collection but also transmission. When you include things such as location tracking or precision you realize that each of those data points requires packets to be transmitted and stored. That increased the burden on the networking and requires integration with teams to ensure that everything is available to stakeholders when requested.
Finally, the likelihood of ever-increasing IoT deployments will not be going away any time soon. More and more devices are gaining features that require constant connectivity and many manufacturers simply assume that their widgets will always be able to reach the cloud. Networking teams need to shift their decision making to accommodate for and put policies in place now that ensure deployments of new IoT devices follow established guidelines for operations and security.
Podcast Information
Tom Hollingsworth is the Networking Analyst for The Futurum Group and Event Lead for Tech Field Day. You can connect with Tom on LinkedIn and X/Twitter. Find out more on his blog or on the Tech Field Day website.
Pete Welcher is a retired networking expert and architect and long time Field Day Delegate. You can connect with Pete on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and on LinkedIn. Read more on Pete through his LinkedIn articles.
Denise Donohue is a Business Architect and a Technical Author. You can connect with Denise on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and X/Twitter. Learn more about Denise through her LinkedIn articles.
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