Hybrid IoT deployments give customers flexibility of choice
Today’s public cloud offerings have helped many companies deploy their products faster and reduce their own data center infrastructure and capital expenses. These readily available public cloud infrastructures have provided an excellent platform to create a variety of different connected products and use cases that are adapted to customer demand and adjusted to optimize ROI.
However, the public cloud doesn’t always work for every situation, and many organizations require a hybrid deployment model, particularly when it comes to managing connected devices. With Uptime Institute finding that 65% of enterprise workloads continue to stay in on-premises data centers, it’s worth taking a closer look at five key reasons why organizations may want to deploy IoT systems in either an on-premises or hybrid environment instead of solely in the public cloud.
1. Efficient decision-making closer to the point of action
Organizations often want to keep decision-making at the local level rather than sending data to a central office for analyzing and processing. For example, data that might be relevant for one factory site may not be useful to other factories within the organization.
By using either on-premises or hybrid IoT device management systems, it allows organizations to save time on decision-making for insights that do not directly transfer from site to site.
2. Critical infrastructure requires zero disruption and latency
Organizations with critical infrastructure often require the ability to obtain data, update and fix any issues in real time, rather than relying on internet connectivity and management in the public cloud. In these instances, an on-premises system helps keep the organization in control.
Also, on-premises device management provides much faster speed of data connectivity between the devices and the server, reducing latency and allowing organizations to make quicker decisions and updates.
3. Regulations: Rules and parameters that form value
If data protection and processing efficiencies are key reasons behind companies’ on-premises needs, so too are adherence to regulations, put in place for a variety of purposes. These may be government regulations — such as the GDPR intended to secure citizens’ personal data and mitigate threats — or they may simply be the company’s own rules for how they want to play the IoT game.
We should bear in mind that the internet of things is still not fully standardized, and technologically systems may not be compatible with each other, so regulations aren’t necessarily a bad thing. They provide discipline, procedures, rules and guidelines that form value for their stakeholders.
4. Integrating IoT with existing systems
A tangible system that enterprise can physically access allows better integration between their IoT devices and existing applications and infrastructure. This is certainly the case when we compare on-premises options and public clouds, where an in-house IoT device management system allows operators to provide instant access, gain administrative rights to the system, and prevent or mitigate many other problems that may arise without complete control over their system.
Better control over the deployment also creates centralized transparency, provides visibility to all aspects of the system and allows stronger integration with management tools.
5. Data and control in the IoT world
Companies are looking to IoT to unlock and unleash their data — the most valuable aspect of their business. They’re capturing, storing and processing vast amounts of data to transform their businesses with actionable insights that deliver new revenue streams, improve customer experiences and reduce operating costs. For example, a shipping company can use sensors on its delivery vehicles to monitor the engine, speed, mileage and average miles per gallon to quickly determine issues and optimize fuel consumption.
However, companies may prefer that their pertinent data does not drift into the public cloud, where there is more potential for it to be accessible by other companies and competitors. Instead, these organizations can keep the data stored, processed and managed on their own premises, using their own databases, servers and data centers.
Conclusion
The public cloud has transformed the way the world works, allowing operational scale and flexibility. However, many companies are looking for an on-premises or hybrid option for their IoT deployment for security, regulatory, process-control and other reasons.
Having an IoT cloud deployment that includes an on-premises configuration provides companies with the flexibility to decide if their system should run as hermetic — without public internet access — to ensure that their system is more secure, better focused and operating on site.
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