The Internet of Things (IoT) has become the backbone of products and services across industries. Mission-critical applications in healthcare, energy, and more rely on IoT devices being online. But as this reliance grows, the impact of IoT outages could become the biggest business risk of the next decade. When reputations, operational productivity, and compliance are at stake, IoT devices, networks, and systems must be resilient – maximizing uptime can be the difference between success and failure.
Counting the cost of IoT outages
Outages are expensive. Even more so if you are operating in the ASEAN region, where outages can cost a median of $2.5 million per hour, 32 percent higher than the global average of $1.9 million per hour. One out of three companies in ASEAN experiences outages weekly, with 87 percent of respondents reporting that each hour of downtime costs them at least $500,000.
Outages in manufacturing can lead to serious supply chain issues, while in healthcare, they could knock heart rate monitors, glucose sensors, and other critical applications offline, putting health and wellbeing at risk and disrupting patient care. Every second counts because even a momentary outage can damage reputations, disrupt operations, and risk compliance.
Given what’s at stake, it’s unsurprising that businesses want performance and reliability most from their IoT connectivity partners. Nearly a quarter (23%) ranked this their number one factor in Wireless Logic/Kaleido Intelligence’s research, a far higher percentage than for any other single factor.
The developing IoT regulatory landscape
Regulators recognise the prevalence of the IoT now in national infrastructure and critical applications. They are working to tighten standards so device designers, OEMs, solutions providers, and enterprises must rethink how they ensure IoT network and device availability.
Around the world, governments are mandating measures to make IT and IoT more resilient. We see it with the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act, China’s Cyber Security Law, and the Telecom Security Acts in the USA and UK. Standards bodies, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Telecommunications Standards Advisory Committee (TSAC), and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), provide frameworks for best practice across the supply chain, risk management, application and device security, incident response, and more.
All these regulations and standards provide a multi-layered map of compliance, but the landscape is perpetually changing. Device designers, engineers, and solutions architects must keep up, but to future-proof designs, it is better to stay ahead, as regulation will only tighten as the IoT’s influence grows.
Having said that, the patchwork of often interrelated frameworks and mandates provides a valuable benchmark – a ‘best practice’ guide if you will. For security, the suite of ISO standards offers a globally recognised and systematic approach to managing information security across various domains. These standards offer organisations a framework to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve their security practices, covering everything from overarching management systems to specific areas like application security and device security.
How to minimize IoT outages
Minimising IoT outages is a challenge because solutions are multidimensional. They comprise devices, networks, software, applications, operational processes, and, invariably, cloud environments. If any part fails, the entire system is at risk.
Unfortunately, resilience is tested continuously by the risk of network failures, cyberattacks, and adverse environmental conditions, which can damage physical devices or affect network signal strength. Against this jeopardy, the only way to minimise the risk of IoT outages is to build resilience and reliability into devices, networks, cloud services, and processes.
Too often, devices are designed for functionality but not resilience, leaving them exposed to the many threats. Connectivity and security must be built in from the start.
How to design reliable and secure IoT
Reliable and secure IoT starts with design. Ask yourself:
- Has redundancy for networks and systems been built in? Can the solution auto-scale with demand fluctuations? Does it have automated failover?
- Is security factored into every aspect of the solution? How comprehensive are the measures? Do they include identity and access management, multi-factor authentication, encrypted data, endpoint protection, and patch management?
- How is service performance optimized? Have edge computing, content delivery networks, and rate-limiting been considered? Is capacity planning undertaken on a regular basis?
- Is real-time monitoring in place for infrastructure, applications, and devices? What about predictive analytics?
- How automated is provisioning? Are software updates automated? Are systems self-healing?
- What is the disaster recovery plan?
- What are the change control procedures? How is version control managed for configurations? Are audits carried out against regulatory standards?
This is not an exhaustive list. IoT solutions can be complex because of the many elements they comprise and because they are often geographically spread. Designers, engineers, solutions architects, and enterprises should engage an IoT solution provider to discuss maximizing uptime at the earliest opportunity to ensure all bases get covered.
Keeping the IoT online
The IoT is embedded in the operations of organisations across industries and continents, it must be afforded the highest due diligence to keep it online, functioning, and serving customers. Designing the IoT for uptime, resilience, and scalability is essential from day one in an environment where regulations and risks constantly evolve. Whilst there will always be risk, there are many proactive measures you can take that help minimise the risk of outages, keep things running, and get solutions back online rapidly in the event of an unforeseen incident.
IoT downtime costs companies and their customers greatly. Everything possible must be done to make devices, networks, and systems resilient and keep the IoT online.
Simon Trend is Group MD & CRO, Americas, APAC, and MENA at Wireless Logic.
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