The Internet of Everything: how to make the most of IoT data

By Mike Kelly, CTO at Blue Medora.

  • 6 years ago Posted in
A recent survey by Gartner predicted that ‘8.4 billion connected things will be in use in 2017’, an increase of 31 percent from 2016. Gartner also predicted that this figure will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. This just shows some indication of how quickly the IoT is growing, and will continue to grow in the future.
 
The IoT is becoming more and more naturally integrated into daily life, and with this comes big opportunities for organisations. This increase in data means that businesses can gain the potential for both insight and competitive advantage. These benefits include analytics, new marketing strategies and operational productivities.
 
However, for businesses to transform this opportunity into revenue, the data needs to be securely analysed, stored and shared. In order to manage all of this data, databases have become much more complex, and consequently, IT teams are struggling with the burden of having to manage so much. Many IT professionals have to rely on disparate tools and out-of-date equipment to manage their database infrastructures, resulting in complication and inadequacies.
 
Database management is behind the times
 
When working with the IoT, one of the most vital components is database technology, and because of this, it too has been rapidly developing. The transition from traditional SQL databases, to NoSQL, Open Source, Big Data, and cloud databases has come about fairly quickly, not including the swift adoption of both cloud infrastructure and virtualisation.
 
All of this combined makes for rapid evolution in the IT world, and it is this advancement in database space that allows the data analytics from IoT and Big Data to be used by many organisations and corporations around the world. It also aids the development processes used by IT teams that help the businesses perform highly.
 
It is this rapid growth of database technology that has caused database monitoring and management technology to fall decades behind. For the majority, today’s database monitoring capabilities are still aimed at on-premises, bare metal, traditional SQL world – nowhere near matching the necessities that enable businesses to make the most out of analysing their IoT data.
 
Get a monitoring system that can do it all
 
The essential tool for analysing data is a database monitoring system that can enable a comprehensive view of the data stack. This will mean that IT teams can easily understand their data, and the complex functions that are going on in their environments. If a business can effectively monitor their database layers to optimise their peak performance, as well as resolving any bottlenecks that may occur from the huge amount of data that can come from IoT devices, it will be in a far superior position than other organisations, as it will be able to use its collected data efficiently and expertly.
 
The Internet of Things has already begun to change how businesses perceive and use data. Yet IT teams are unable to analyse and understand their database infrastructures due to the vast amounts of data that is constantly being collected. IoT data will unfortunately make IT infrastructures and databases considerably harder to manage, and more complex. To tackle this, IT reams need to make sure they have a database monitoring system and IT management tools in place, in order to enable full visibility, reduce network complexity and to spot any underlying problems before they become issues. This way, businesses can make the most out of IoT data.