Cisco IoT System simplifies large scale management of networked devices and objects, and provides business insights more quickly via a data analytics platform at the network’s edge.
Cisco estimates that 50bn devices and objects will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Yet today, more than 99% of things in the physical world remain unconnected.
To capitalise on the unprecedented opportunities presented by this wave of digitisation, companies and cities are increasingly deploying Internet of Things solutions.
However, digitisation is complex. Businesses are often connecting devices and objects – or converging unrelated networks – at previously unprecedented scales.
Furthermore, according to Cisco, they can only realise the value of these connections through the application of advanced data analytics, and even then, customers often still need to create a new class of intelligent applications capable of accelerating new business models or increasing productivity.
Of course, all of this has to happen without ever sacrificing security at any point in the system, from the device to the data centre and via the cloud.
The new Cisco IoT System aims to address the complexity of digitisation with an infrastructure that’s designed to manage large scale systems of diverse endpoints and platforms, and the data deluge they create.
It comprises six technology pillars which – when combined together into an architecture – help reduce the complexities of digitisation:
- Network Connectivity: Includes purpose-built routing, switching, and wireless products available in ruggedised and non-ruggedised form factors.
- Fog Computing: ‘Fog’ is a distributed computing infrastructure for IoT which extends computing capability – and thereby data analytics applications – to the ‘edge’ of networks. It enables customers to analyse and manage data locally, and thereby to derive immediate insights from connections. Cisco predicts that 40% of IoT-created data will be processed in the fog by 2018.
- Security: Unifies cyber and physical security to deliver operational benefits and increase the protection of both physical and digital assets.
- Data Analytics: Provides an optimised infrastructure to implement analytics and harness actionable data for both the Cisco Connected Analytics portfolio and third party analytics software.
- Management and Automation: Provides enhanced security, control and support for multiple siloed functions to deliver an easy-to-use system for managing an increasing volume of endpoints and applications, field operators need an easy-to-use management system.
- Application Enablement Platform: Offers a set of APIs for industries and cities, ecosystem partners and third-party vendors to design, develop and deploy their own applications on the foundation of IoT System capabilities.
Kip Compton, VP/GM, IoT Systems and Software Group, Cisco, said: “The Cisco IoT System provides a comprehensive set of IoT technologies and products that simplify and accelerate the deployment of infrastructure for the Internet of Things.”
Doug Davis, SVP/GM, Internet of Things Group at Intel, commented: “IoT is a significant opportunity but one that needs interoperability and scale to fulfil industry predictions of billions of connected devices. The IoT pillars, jointly defined by Intel and Cisco serve as a strong foundation for companies to build IoT solutions that can be seamlessly interconnected and achieve the scale that delivers value promised through IoT.”
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Sujeet Chand, SVP/CTO of Rockwell Automation, added: “Together with Cisco, we are helping customers derive value from the Internet of Things, by simplifying connectivity of assets on the plant floor with the rest of the enterprise and with remote experts.
By focusing on the key values of the Cisco approach to IoT, our mutual customers can benefit from improved decision making that can lead to streamlined business and manufacturing processes, reduced network complexities and improved security. Rockwell Automation and Cisco take a collaborative approach to bring OT and IT together to deliver performance-critical information to drive business outcomes across The Connected Enterprise.”
