Self-driving cars, integrated toys, smart home appliances, and even critical infrastructure have all become part of the ecosystem of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which begs the concerning question, "How will network administrators process all the data generated?"

IoT has introduced new pathways into data centers because the technology relies on TCP/IP communications that may have a detrimental impact on traffic and, more important, data center security. And while a significant amount of the data that is collected at the edge is managed and manipulated there, eventually the data, in some form, makes its way back to a central location. 

Managing a data centers IoT might appear simple, with many of the devices performing simple processes such as turning lights on or off or perhaps even monitoring temperature. The very simplicity of this challenges larger issues involving security, connectivity, and operational concerns.

As IoT devices are feeding data into data centers, from both internal and external devices, while also introducing new requirements and new types of data, we need to ready for the exponential growth in the market and the astonishing number of IoT devices expected to be nearly triple the planet’s human population by 2020.

With each added device will come increased data and increased requirements for security and management of the devices onto the networks, providing critical operational information and potentially transforming data center operations.

IoT will eventually provide data streams between each asset and the data center, allowing those assets to be integrated into new and existing organizational processes, thus, having access to real-time information via IoT devices.

A greater understanding of operational status would allow network administrators to enhance productivity through optimized models, bring more IoT devices into the data center, and incorporate IoT analytics into business planning and processes giving insights into overall business requirements, which ultimately would help predict any fluctuations of operational data. 

With all the benefits of IoT, network administrators and teams are still faced with the sheer volume of devices and the structure of IoT data, showcasing itself in areas such as security, data, storage management, servers, and the data center network. This ultimately means that network administrators need to deploy more aggressive capacity management to align business priorities associated with IoT.

Data center professionals are quickly discovering that IoT consists of a lot of individual devices with their own specifications, but over time, a lack of standardization will become a much bigger problem, as more of our devices seek to communicate with each other and are forced to meet compliance standards to include GDPR.

IoT is growing and IT teams are bearing the brunt of the increased data and concerns generated by IoT, but there is also no denying the potential of IoT to deliver new insights, improve business drivers and operations, and growing services is on the horizon, and having the right infrastructure in your data center to adopt to the changes will remain vital to success.