Companies across all industries are adding sensors
to a wide range of equipment. These businesses need to create a technology and
business-process strategy that secures IoT devices as well as a method to
analyze data from these devices. This isn’t easy, especially if a company has
numerous locations and older equipment.
It may not be possible to upgrade certain equipment
to run advanced security to support IoT sensors. It’s also unrealistic to
backhaul large volumes of data from numerous locations to a central area for
processing and analytics. Transferring data from sensors cost time and money.
What companies need is a way to secure, collect and analyze data at the network
edge. This is why companies such as Dell, HPE and Cisco are selling what’s
called an IoT gateway.
IoT edge gateways can serve many functions such as
device connectivity, protocol translation, data filtering and processing and
security. Industrial strength IoT gateways can withstand harsh conditions,
changes in temperature, and resist electromagnetic interference. The gateways
should also support low energy requirements.
If the application demands it, a company can buy a
gateway and software that can analyze vast amounts of data locally, eliminating
the time and expense of backhauling sensor data. These solutions make it
possible for developing use cases that can deliver actionable insight
immediately by location. For example, data can be collected and analyzed at a
factory and information on any potential equipment health and performance issues
can be delivered to the plant manager in real-time. This minimizes consumption
of expensive wide area network bandwidth and reduces the time it takes to
deliver insight to the right person. Given the volume of data that can be
collected from various sensors at the edge, the gateway needs to have the
processing power to support local analytics.
An Edge Gateway sits at the intersection of the
external internet and the local intranet that is being used by the connected
devices in your ecosystem. These gateways act as a sentry that prevents a
malicious actor from gaining access to your network via a sensor that may have
a security hole. The gateway itself must offer strong security measures, such
as embedding a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) device into the device.
Dell was already selling products into the IoT
marketplace which included an IoT gateway and embedded PCs. At the Mobile World
Congress event, Dell announced a smaller, more affordable gateway that can be
used in various vertical scenarios. The Dell Gateway 3000 support both fixed
and mobile use cases requiring smaller sensor networks, tight spaces, and
simpler analytics. The gateway comes in various configurations to support use
cases such as logistics, energy management, digital signage and vending.
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