Lack of Skilled Staff Inhibits Adoption of IoT

A recent report by Cisco and Capita states that IT leaders are concerned that they do not have enough skilled resources to carry out potential IoT adoptions. This is an issue in several important and new areas of IT Management. It points to a need to change the approach to IT Education and certification, perhaps to one of emphasizing cooperative training with industry rather than gaining university degrees.

University degrees take a long time and the people acquiring them have little or no experience. Cooperative programs with trade schools and community colleges are faster and produce people with important and useful on-the-job experience. Check out this short summary of the report.

IoT Connections to Exceed Mobile Phones

The Internet of Things has been growing exponentially. A recent report by Ericsson finds that by 2018, the number of IoT connections will exceed that of mobile phones.

This growth is generated by such phenomena as smart houses, transport logistics, medical applications, autonomous cars and remote manufacturing.

Many of these applications are highly sensitive and require a very high degree of reliability and stability. Therefore they are a focus of IT management and a drain on  resources. With a projected annual growth rate of 23%, such IoT devices are becoming ubiquitous.

For a rundown on the Ericsson report, check this link.

Growing Volumes of Data Create Management Issues

The world supply of data is growing rapidly. That's no secret. At present the global volume of data is 4.4 zettabytes. One Zettabyte equals one sextillion bytes or 10 to the 16th power or one trillion gigabytes. It's hard to imagine, but clearly that's a lot of data. Predictions by IDC in a recent study indicate that global data will increase from 4.4 to 44 zettabytes over the next four years. Business will bear the brunt of this growth in data and will need to manage it.

The cloud is crucial to managing the data. But there also needs to be an organized and efficient means of integrating the data with corporate systems, including ERP and other enterprise systems. An additional complication is that much of the ultimate output needs to be channeled to mobile devices, including smartphones. There is a growing realization that the mobile world in which we live is an ongoing reality and the primary means of consuming information for the foreseeable future.

While systems integration has been with us for many years, the integration process involved with the new data is a relatively new field. It must take place in the cloud first and that primarily involves organizing the data so it can be processed. Companies are using "data lakes" for the first stage and then transitioning to cloud based data warehouses and various applications that feed into mobile apps.

For an interesting overview of the processes, here's a good article on the subject.