Are you thinking about an IoT Operations Center yet? You should be.

Featured article by Manu Tayal and Arsalaan Kashif, Happiest Minds Technologies

IoT has emerged as one of the most disruptive technologies that has the potential to change the way people live, work and communicate. This has undoubtedly attracted the attention of a number of organizations that are looking to create new business models that revolutionize everything from creation to consumption.

Even though IoT has been a buzzword for a few years, it’s only now that organizations are moving from the “Proof of value” to the “productization” stage of their IoT journey. However, as things pick up steam, it is only natural that a number of organizations would soon initiate enterprise wide rollouts, which would require an increased focus on operationalizing IoT.

So far, organizations have focused on certain elements of IoT that have caught their fancy while glossing over certain other crucial aspects. However, they will have to soon connect the dots for an elevated IoT experience that can be sustained over a long period of time.

This is where a dedicated “IoT Operations Center” becomes critical in ensuring a smooth and seamless enterprise wide IoT rollout. It would serve as a next generation operations center, which ensures improved connectivity, increased control over devices and effective cloud and infrastructure management while ensuring high levels of security and customer support.

Let us look at how an IoT Operations Center can stitch together the various elements that go into enabling a smart, secure and connected IoT experience.

Connectivity Management

It is widely estimated that in the next 5 years, there will be 21 billion things that will be connected across the world. It’s safe to say that the need for effective connectivity management cannot be overemphasized. In a world where smart cars are communicating with parking sensors, a disruption in connectivity can prove to be disastrous.

However, in the event of compromised connectivity an IoT operations centre would be able to use the right tools to ascertain the reasons for failure and take the appropriate steps to remedy the issue.

Device Management

With the plethora of devices that will now be connected to each other, it’s going to be an onerous task to ensure that all of them are working cohesively and in harmony with each other. Even so much as a minor malfunction could throw a spanner in the works and send the entire operation spiralling out of control.

As a lot of these devices would be deployed far and wide the operations centre would need the right tools to manage these devices in the field. These devices would go through multiple stages in their lifecycle and would need to be managed through each stage.

Inventory management, Commissioning and replacement of the devices or sensors

Devices need to be procured or manufactured and tested for functionality before they are commissioned into the field. More so if they have to be fitted with a SIM card as the association between a SIM card, Device ID and the end user has to be established before the device is dispatched for installations.

Configuring and controlling the gateway

Most of the times, the devices will be deployed in the field with a default configuration. This may need to be changed based on the specifics of the customer, location and use case. The operations centre would need to send that configuration down to the device remotely.

Monitoring the health of the devices and calibration of the sensors

One of the KRAs of the operations centre would be to ensure minimum downtime of the devices. Also it is important to keep an eye on a possible breach of security. Typically, devices send the heartbeat signal to let the system know about their status. If not, specific heuristics may need to be developed to detect any anomaly in the device behaviour to detect device problems.

Upgrade the software on the devices at module, application and system levels

Bugs exist. They need to be patched. Features evolve. They need to be upgraded. All of this can happen at various levels – module, application or system. The operations centre needs to be responsible for patching and upgrading the devices.

Cloud Infrastructure Management

The quantum of connected devices we are likely to see in the future will place tremendous demands on traditional architectures causing them to eventually crumble under pressure. In addition, challenges with scale, reliability and a faster turnaround to business demands will prompt a move to a cloud based environment. Although the devices may not be connected all the time due to connectivity charges, the cloud infrastructure would typically be expected to be up and running 99.X% of the time.

The dedicated IoT operations centre would play a key role in monitoring for scale and performance, monitoring for uptime and providing dynamic support for new protocols and devices.

Security

Security has been a major concern universally and is likely to climb up the charts with the number of connected devices on the up rise. In an environment that has a wide range of devices connected to each other, vulnerabilities can creep in rather easily and compromise the entire system. The IoT Operations Centre would enable the monitoring of device security, cloud security and application security.

Customer Service

Even though IoT is powered by things, it is ultimately all about ensuring the best possible experience to a customer and elevating his quality of work and life. The IoT operations centre would be expected to provide insights into operations performance of the customer and insights into cost and product performance.

It is inevitable that the concept of a dedicated IOT operations centre becomes a reality as IoT roll outs become increasingly common. Most organizations who are embracing IoT aren’t fully geared up to embrace all aspects of an operations center, which can very easily lead to sub-par results. It would be prudent to work with an experienced partner who has been at the forefront of embracing innovation and setting up dedicated practices across different stages of an IoT journey.

Authors

Manu Tayal, General Manager – IoT, Happiest Minds Technologies

Arsalaan Kashif, Associate Director – Product Engineering Services, Happiest Minds Technologies