IoT devices will outnumber laptops, tablets and smartphones

By 2020, 21 billion of Internet of Things devices (IoT devices) will be in use worldwide thereby outnumbering laptops, tablets and smartphones. Of these, close to 6 percent will be in use for industrial IoT applications.

However, IT organizations have issues identifying these devices and characterising them as part of current network access policy, said Gartner.

Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders must therefore update their network access policy to seamlessly address the onslaught of IoT devices.

"Having embraced a bring-your-own-device strategy, organizations must now get employee devices on the enterprise network and start addressing the 21 billion IoT devices that we project will want access to the enterprise network," said Tim Zimmermann, research vice president, Gartner.

"Many IoT devices will use the established bandwidth of the enterprise network provided by the IT organisation (wireless 1.3 Gbps of 802.11ac Wave 1 or 1.7 Gbps of 802.11ac Wave 2). However, it is important that the IT organisation works directly with facilities management and business units to identify all devices and projects connected to the enterprise infrastructure and attaching to the network," added Zimmermann.

Once all of the devices attached to the network are identified, the IT organization must create or modify the network access policy as part of an enterprise policy enforcement strategy. This should determine if and how these devices will be connected, as well as what role they will be assigned that will govern their access.

In order to monitor access and priority of IoT devices, I&O leaders need to consider additional enterprise network best practices. These can be defining a connectivity policy, as many IoT devices will be connected via Wi-Fi; performing spectrum planning - many IoT devices may be using 2.4 GHz, but may not be using 802.11 protocols such as Bluetooth, ZigBee or Z-Wave, which may create interference; or considering packet sniffers to identify devices that may do something undesirable on the network.

While more IoT devices are added to the enterprise network, I&O leaders will need to create virtual segments. These will allow network architects to separate all IoT assets (such as LED lights or a video camera) from other network traffic, supporting each FM application or BU process from other enterprise applications and users.