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Mulling the network impact of the Internet of Things
This week, bloggers examine the network impact of IoT, tackle RSA Conference priorities and how to use MS Visio for network diagramming.
Drue Reeves, blogging for Gartner, distinguished the Internet of Things from traditional IT management, highlighting five key differences in its business and network impact. IoT, he wrote, is the "marriage of two very different worlds." Those worlds are operational technology, or OT, and IT, which have very different operational needs and technology lifespans.
"IoT isn't something that IT can wholly own and operate," he said. "To create a truly end-to-end IoT solution, IT will need to go into the field, understand their existing operational technology, work with OT engineers and the business leaders who run those OT businesses to gather requirements and build a functional solution." For IT and OT, understanding the network impact of IoT will be critical for bridging the gap between the two schools of thought.
According to Reeves, IT faces a "steady -- if not meteoric -- rise in the volume, velocity and variety of data." Data management needs are much more substantial than many other systems, with massive intakes of telemetry data from multiple sensors on multiple devices. Other IoT effects include physical security and denial-of-service risks stemming from end-to-end automation, as well as challenging, advanced integration and complex network impact.
Read more of Reeves' thoughts on IoT.
RSA Conference 2016 highlights cybersecurity priorities
The 2016 RSA Conference is about highlighting and fixing industry failings in the security realm, according to Jon Oltsik, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group Inc., in Milford, Mass. Referring to RSA President Amit Yoran's speech at last year's conference, Oltsik said he believes the security industry has continued to devolve, citing the growth of Internet of Things applications and an ongoing move to public cloud. The RSA Conference brings to light three key trends, Oltsik wrote.
First, companies are seeking to decrease the attack surface by segmenting traffic and turning to whitelisting, network access controls and workload microsegmentation. Second, in addition to software, enterprises represented at the RSA Conference said they want increased productivity out of cybersecurity professionals, and are embracing integrated cybersecurity orchestration platforms, such as Hexadite, FirstHour and Phantom Cyber, to build successful security teams. Third, Oltsik said he believes chief information security officers are keen to improve security, without decreasing customer experience, using tools from CrowdStrike, Confer, and Trend Micro to offload malware analysis and indicators of compromise to the cloud.
Explore more of Oltsik's thoughts on RSA Conference 2016.
Diagramming networks with MS Visio
Writing for Packet Pushers, Jaakko Rautanen examined network diagrams and offered a step-by-step tutorial to help IT pros more accurately diagram their networks in Microsoft Visio, acknowledging that the software isn't necessarily the best tool. For success with Visio, Rautanen emphasized that connectors are often the most complicated part. He said it's best to select by type and never reroute connectors to avoid line jumps, and added that copy and paste features are another way to avoid problems.
Rautanen suggested other tips for MS Visio, such as turning off auto size, and setting print and page size settings. He added that labeling can be a further challenge in Visio, such that labels do not necessarily adhere to connector ends -- even though multiple labels are available for each shape.
Discover more of Rautanen's thoughts on working with Microsoft Visio.
