The future of the IoT with remote management

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow at a great rate. According to CISCO, around 50 billion IoT devices are currently in use. The telecommunications company predicts that this number will grow tenfold to 500 billion by 2030. With such a large number of devices that will continue to grow, device management plays a big role. Without extensive remote management functions, long-term and extensive further developments and investments in the IoT infrastructure are not possible. A very large number of devices must be managed quickly and cost-effectively, and this management function is the biggest differentiator in IoT solutions and one of the most important decision criteria for an investment. SMEs invest around 6.4% of their annual turnover in IT. 80 percent of the costs are incurred for device maintenance after the purchase. Each employee spends around 30 minutes of their working week fixing device problems.

The greatest challenge with the growing number of devices is that the number of operators does not grow to the same extent, but remains as constant as possible. With the exponential growth of edge devices, managing and maintaining all of these devices is becoming virtually an impossible task. There won’t be enough technicians to take care of all of these devices. Hence another way of managing all of these devices is required.

Public clouds, private clouds, and the intranet are different use cases and therefore also require very different remote management solutions. With these, operators of IoT infrastructures must effectively manage countless remote devices at geographically very widely distributed locations. Remote management is an indispensable tool for accessing device data and settings. Modern IoT infrastructures do not limit remote management to so-called in-band management alone, but with out-band management offers much higher system stability and a much longer operating time without failure. This management offers further advantages. Very faulty devices can be restored, and no working operating system is required. An independent internet connection is used if the normal connection fails. This service complements the in-band management and does not serve as a complete replacement. A storage device such as InnoAGE™ from Innodisk combining with the Microsoft Azure cloud service or a private cloud is required for out-of-band signaling.

An administration and maintenance platform, e.g. iCAP™ from Innodisk allows access to all device data and control of the devices via a web browser. This can be done from anywhere using internet-connected cell phones, tablets or laptops. In addition, iCAP™ fully enables in-band and out-of-band management at the same time, so that even very faulty edge devices can be restored in a short time. The iCAP™ agent supports both Windows and Linux platforms. The user can change the dashboard through a dynamic user interface and select the parameters and widgets relevant to his application. A tracker logs all changes and further details on the device status can be called up via index tables. iCAP™ can also monitor devices from other brands, provided that Innodisk storage components are used. The platform supports DRAM monitoring and provides the user with remote access to iSMART™ DRAM information and module predictions. The web browser used must support HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The minimum requirement for the server is an IntelR Core™ i3 2.3 GHz CPU or higher, 4 GB RAM, 20 GB root partition for the system, and 100 GB data storage. The agent is included in the scope of delivery of Innodisk Storage products.

The InnoAGE™ SSD from Innodisk is, on the one hand, flash memory technology and on the other hand, it connects the cloud with the edge device. The solution was jointly developed with Microsoft and has out-of-band signaling technology that enables it to remain connected and controllable even if the host system has failed. Thanks to the independent Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity of the InnoAGE™ SSD and the remote management system, system operators can bring their devices back up to date if an error has occurred. There is no downtime. The memories are available in capacities from 64 GB to 1 TB and offer the key form factors M.2 and 2.5 ‘‘. They can be used in the extended temperature range from -40°C to + 85°C and shock and vibration resistant. Customer-specific adaptations include the hardware, firmware, and software as well as fully integrated solutions.