In today’s time, the world is constantly moving towards ‘everything as a service’. Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) that is enabling faster connectivity and transformation in the digital space. The IoT ecosystem, which comprises devices, sensors, connectivity protocols, gateways, network infrastructure, web, and mobile applications is big now and set to become even bigger in the future. With so many connected devices and applications, the user experience and scaling of the system have become the prime differentiators for a lot of companies offering IoT products, platforms, and services. This is why, Cloud computing is widely getting adopted by companies to provide seamless user experience, achieve scale and ensure maximum uptime of the IoT devices in the connected environment.

Cloud Migration for IoT

Adopting cloud computing for IoT means companies need to move their entire IoT infrastructure, including operations to the cloud. In cloud migration of on-premise IoT applications, subsequent microservices based architecture and DevOps process transformation in the cloud become an integral part of cloud operations. However, the major challenge most organizations face is running and managing these IoT operations in the cloud once the migration is complete.

Gone are the days when IT and data center teams used to monitor only applications and related servers, network, connectivity, etc. In an IoT cloud environment, monitoring edge devices like video nodes, home automation gateways, fleet management cameras, etc., along with related cloud services, microservices, containers, response times, live requests, configuration ease, dynamic storage, latency, availability, VMs, CPU utilization, database, cloud security, etc., become some of the additional parameters that need to be considered.

Let us know what all form the part of cloud operations (CloudOps) of IoT systems:

CloudOps in IoT

• Once the cloud migration is complete, it is important to identify the Cloud services related to security, load balancing, streaming, storage, etc., that can be leveraged. Cloud providers like AWS and Azure have many data centers and optimal geographical coverage. Moreover, the disaster recovery and backup process for cloud operations in case of multiple sites also form an important part of ensuring business continuity.
• As the number of edge devices increase or the number of users using the IoT platform increase, the number of related applications, services, and related costs are also expected to increase. However, with cloud operations services like performance optimization and cost analysis, this can be controlled. DevOps orchestration in the cloud in terms of automating configuration, deployment and continuous monitoring in the production environment is needed to maximize the mean time to repair and respond to metrics.
• In an IoT world, as the number of endpoints to cover increases, the number of threats also grows. Hence, IoT security has become a primary requirement in recent times. Moreover, cloud deployments raise a lot of questions on IoT data security. Hence, cloud security for data at rest and in motion, cloud platform integrity and threat management forms a natural part of cloud security in the operations environment.
• Cloud Infrastructure managed services like continuous monitoring of applications and infrastructure and related incident management are inherited from the traditional IT landscape. However, automating these processes with chatbots or using collaboration automation and knowledge management tools is completely a new addition to cloud operations.

There are a plethora of tools in the market for cloud operations management. However, it takes a detailed statistical analysis and process to arrive at the right tools recommendation for a particular IoT infrastructure. Hence the tools, processes, target operating model and the governance model for IoT cloud operations forms another important part of defining the end-user experience and a company’s operational costs in the long term.

eInfochips provide CloudOps managed services for IoT to enable intelligent automation and empower Consumer IoT and Industrial IoT companies with continuous integration, build, testing, and deployment capabilities. Know more about eInfochips Cloud and DevOps Consulting Services.