Smart and intelligent systems are vital to establishing an agile and efficient networking infrastructure that can meet the present dynamic industrial requirements. Here, IoT(Internet of Things) fulfills such requirements in the digital world for secure and quick transfer of data. Today, network automation tools facilitate IoT devices in different ways to connect equipment like sensors, computer systems, etc.
You get smarter and more efficient operations in numerous workstations with Network Automation solutions. The basic challenge to embracing IoT is the consistent increment in the number of workstations.Automation has turned out to be an essential requirement for managing and connecting IoT devices together in remote workstations. In this article, we are going to learn about the features that automation adds to IoT devices.
Challenges to set up IoT devices on an enterprise level
Let’s focus on the challenges faced by industry people to adopt intelligent concepts like IoT:
Device configuration and provisioning
Scalability leads to setting up new networking devices in different offices located at different geographical locations and time zones. Doing it manually can take up a lot of valuable time, money, and resources. Therefore, you need to deploy something that can cope with the changes in the present world. IoT devices can easily be configured with the help of modern network automation tools.
Scalability of networks
The intense growth of IoT devices leads to such a traffic jam on the network lines. Moreover, it can increase network latency and bandwidth issues. Further, while scaling up your enterprise, IoT devices must communicate with each other in a hassle-free manner. Manual efforts are insufficient to do such tasks.
Security challenges
IoT devices, being a new innovation, can lead to getting vulnerabilities and risks that might hamper your enterprise security. Your security measures should protect the confidentiality of your enterprise data and should prevent cybersecurity attacks proactively.
Real-time monitoring and maintenance
Manually, it is not possible to execute real-time network monitoring and management processes. Real-time monitoring is essential for today’s enterprises to learn the performance and efficiency of network lines. It is possible only with the latest network automation solutions.
How do network automation tools help IoT devices?
Network automation tools provide a great help to enterprise to stabilize, maintain, manage, and configure network lines automatically. In this section, we will proceed to learn how network automation is a great help to IoT devices:
Automated device provisioning, configuration, and maintenance
One of the most critical aspects using IoT devices is their provisioning and configuration. Deploying an IoT solution in an IT infrastructure is typical. Manual intervention may lead to errors and mistakes. Here, network automation tools can automatically detect new device that are queued for provisioning and configuration. The configuration process becomes simple and precise because of the use of correct parameters, security settings, IP addresses, etc. further, you can enable zero-touch provisioning(ZTP) with network automation tools.
Dynamic traffic management and network optimization
It’s difficult to manage network traffic dynamically with IoT devices, if manual approach is used. Using network automation solutions can be a great help in this case. With priority routing and network traffic management tools, data transfer and sharing will become as smooth as silk. Further, automation tools can optimize network bandwidth and routes as required by particular business applications.
Help in network slicing and segmentation
Network slicing and segmentation help increase the network security, preventing advanced cybersecurity risks to hamper your enterprise network infrastructure. It can help allocate different dedicated network segments, especially in the case of 5G networks.
Provides flexibility to seamless scalability
A network must be flexible and scalable so that the enterprises can expand gradually. The network infrastructure must be open to avail, deploy, and manage the increasing number of IoT devices for your enterprise. Further, edge computing is also a newer concept that should be adapted along with IoT devices. It will help in faster and more efficient routing of data packets according to application requirements.
Enhanced security features
With network automation solutions, IoT devices can get enhanced security features that can help detect, prevent, and fight upcoming cybersecurity threats. Advanced network automation tools can proactively detect and respond to critical threats, that too in real-time. Further, device authentication is also necessary to manage network security and prevent intruders.
Proactive monitoring and troubleshooting of errors
Automation is a sure-shot way to enhance network monitoring and troubleshooting without manual intervention. Further, you integrate proactive troubleshooting features with IoT devices using network automation tools. Predictive analysis can safeguard you from potential hazards caused by intrusion attacks. Also, corrective actions like adjusting configurations, relocating bandwidth, rebooting devices, etc are performed automatically.
Easy integration with the current networking infrastructure
Automation solutions ensure seamless integration of networking devices with IoT devices, that too, in your existing networking architecture. In addition, automation tools are known for seamless management of multi-vendor environments.
At Last
Network automation architecture in an IoT-based networking environment prevents you from manual errors. Manual intervention in complex and large networking environments is always prone to errors. You can expect high security, agility, scalability, and flexibility in a networking architecture with automation solutions. Further, you can hire popular network automation vendors from your area to get more detailed information.
FAQs:
- What is network automation?
Network automation is the technique to reduce manual efforts to manage, configure, maintain, and control a networking architecture.
- Why is network automation necessary for deploying IoT devices?
Network automation tools provide the surety to seamless and consistent deployment, configuration, and management of IoT devices in a networking infrastructure.
- How do network automation tools enhance the security of IoT devices?
Network automation tools can enforce modern network encryption policies, access controls, and device authentication to establish a proactive cybersecurity approach.
- How do network automation tools handle traffic on a network line?
Network automation tools can help optimize the network performance and efficiency by prioritizing traffics and reducing bottlenecks present on the network lines.
- What are the key benefits of using network automation tools?
Improved efficiency, network performance, security, and agility are some of the ky benefits of using network automation tools.