Putting Data to Work

The Chief Data Officer (CDO) is a new and significant addition to city executive councils around the globe. The proliferation of this new role is thanks to the greater presence of Internet of Things (IoT) technology where torrents of new data need to be harnessed in order to drive the Smart City revolution.

Between population growth, constrained resources and challenges like tough climate targets, cities have very little choice but to get smarter. And like almost every other facet of life today, the IoT phenomena promises to transform our city lives, revealing new data and operational insights from an exponentially growing number of smart, connected sensors.

New Services are Driving Bandwidth Requirements

The demand for fiber optic network solutions keeps on growing. Ultra-high-speed services are the new norm for applications such as increased online connectivity for businesses, secure communication for federal networks, noise immunity for industrial environments, and streaming video and online gaming for home users.

One of the fastest growing applications is Fiber to the Home (FTTH) services, but there are many other network and service applications where FTTx is a strategic imperative. Fiber can be deployed directly to buildings (FTTB), desks (FTTD), nodes (FTTN), and many more, supporting the wide range of users who can benefit from high-speed secure connectivity.

THE POWER OF REAL-TIME INSIGHTS

The concept of IoT is hardly new, as most advanced manufacturers have been equipping their factories and warehouses with networked sensors for decades. It's the connectivity between 'things' that drives today's IoT discussions, as the exponential growth in IoT-connected devices creates network bottlenecks, bandwidth limitations, data latency and increasing infrastructure costs when using traditional, hierarchical network architecture. Manufacturers require real-time visibility into factory processes to maintain high levels of production efficiency. This requires localized access, storage and analytics only possible with the latest in hyper-converged edge computing technology.

Defending the Border

The increasing consumption of data on mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution have both transformed the edge of the network. Mobile has moved the edge of the network from the traditional wired LAN to the Wireless LAN, and IoT has triggered a need to connect many more types of devices to the network, generating data in many different formats and protocols. In parallel, attackers have increased their sophistication and threats come in so many forms that maintaining a secure yet effective network has become a time-consuming and costly challenge.

Traditional security models focus on preventing attacks from getting inside the network. Therefore the focus is to defend the borders, since these are typically the weakest points. Firewalls are a good example of this – they inspect traffic passing in and out of the network and can block anything suspicious to prevent threats getting in, or sensitive data from leaving. However relying solely on a firewall for network protection is like locking your front door while leaving the back door wide open.

Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

Video surveillance is an integral part of modern security systems, found in all kinds of premises ranging from airports to shopping malls, and corporate buildings to train stations. It provides a great deterrent to malicious behavior, and is an excellent tool in solving the mystery of past misdemeanors.

In today's digital world, security has also embraced the advantages of instant access to images stored and retrieved on computers. Allied Telesis offers a diverse portfolio of products, and a suite of features, that enhance the ability to securely and reliably transport security video footage across an IP network.

IPTV surveillance systems generally involve a number of devices—IP cameras, servers, and clients—and involve multicast technology to deliver video streams to every intended recipient:

• Smaller installations are based on Layer 2 switching technology, while larger scenarios include options for a Layer 3-routed environment.
• The pure Layer 2 approach is preferable in small to medium installations, due to its simplified network configuration and maintenance. It does not require a complex multicast architecture involving multicast routing protocols.
• In larger systems, it is likely that the video data will be transported in an environment divided into separate IP subnets, in order to enable scalability, and provide a network that is both robust and easily managed.
   
    

Innovating the Future

Enterprise data networks have evolved rapidly over the last few decades, and are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. Today, enterprise networks are rich with complexity and capability. Voice and video have converged with data onto a single IP-over-Ethernet infrastructure. Wireless Ethernet connectivity has become ubiquitous. High levels of security, reliability and manageability are now a basic expectation.

Despite the huge amount of progress made so far, there is no room for complacency. Technical advances are driven by the need to meet challenges, and there are still plenty of problems arising in the realm of enterprise networking. More innovation is needed, and so Enterprise networking continues to innovate to meet everyday challenges such as:

• Dealing with the mobility, diversity and rapid advancement of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), while maintaining the security, reliability and performance of the network is a unique challenge.
• The flip-side of BYOD is that mobile users expect to have the ability to check email, update records and examine data—anywhere, anytime.
• For effective disaster recovery, organizations need real-time mirroring of servers to an offsite location and a process to cut over to running services live from that offsite location.
• Convergence of real-time services like VoIP, video conferencing, surveillance video, machine control and IoT data onto a single Enterprise network still creates problems to be solved.
• Private data centers require that Enterprise networks are much more responsive to meet the typical data center requirements of low-latency, high bandwidth data transfer, as well as rapid response to services moving between physical hosts.
• Cloud-based applications and services put unprecedented pressure on Internet connections, creating another growing bandwidth management headache.