Potential benefits and downsides of IoT in the Enterprise

The ever-increasing network of connected devices and sensors is already revolutionising our daily lives but we’ve really only scratched the surface of its potential. Research firm Gartner projected that all services connected to the IoT would be worth around $235 billion last year but, with an estimated 20.8 billion devices to be connected to the internet by 2020, IoT is still in its infancy and has plenty of room for growth.

The fledgling fleet of IoT devices currently on the market already allow people to control their household and monitor their health anytime and anywhere. While the healthcare sector has also been quick to adopt connected devices to monitor health information.

As businesses become more dependent on IoT services and solutions it becomes increasingly important to ensure they are not interrupted. Nothing other than 24.7.365 availability will be acceptable to businesses and users, and failure to deliver this Always-On access may severely hamper its adoption.

Financial loss is a serious threat to businesses that cannot guarantee service availability around IoT devices. According to the Veeam Availability Report, downtime costs enterprises an average of $16 million a year, while more than two-thirds of IT decision makers (68 percent) acknowledge that it can affect customers’ confidence in their organisation.

One possible way of avoiding this is ensuring regular backups and snapshots from which businesses can restore their data. It’s also vital to ensure the increased flow of connected device data is protected and secure at all times. Businesses must deploy near-continuous data protection, verify their protection to guarantee recovery, and use appropriate encryption tools to protect against unauthorised access.

Forward-thinking businesses are increasingly incorporating availability into their data centre strategies and modernisation plans. Very few applications are not deemed ‘mission-critical’ by a business or its customers, which means protecting data using the 3-2-1 rule – keeping 3 different copies of data, on 2 different media, with 1 of those locations off-site.

IT leaders must properly assess these platforms and ensure a solid availability strategy is in place to underpin their digital goals. Putting it at the centre of any IoT plans will enable innovation to flourish, thus increasing consumer trust and allowing businesses to reap the full benefits of going digital – including ensuring all pets get fed on time.