Data is at the center of success for businesses. Managing it more securely will become even more essential in the coming years. Timely, accurate, and actionable data is crucial for every industry to unlock work productivity, drive innovation, prevent accidents, combat climate change, and ensure food production security. On the global scale every facet of our daily lives is impacted by data. Recently, I joined Jim Brisimitzis, Founder and General Partner of 5G Open Innovation Labs, for a webinar discussion. He shared a datapoint from Statista that really amplified the presence of data in our lives: in 2020, the world generated 64 zettabytes (ZB) of data; in 2025, they estimate that intelligent devices could generate between 165-180 ZBs. To put that in perspective, one zettabyte is equal to 1 trillion gigabytes.
Prioritizing Security Needs
The expanding scale of data via intelligent devices carries with it several things: promise, vulnerability, and responsibility. Every day it seems like there is news of a security breach followed by a theft of intellectual property or essential data being held at ransom. It seems this way because it is reality. Data security shouldn’t only be a top-of-mind focus for the C-Suite, but rather a ubiquitous standard for every employee. That same standard should be applied to every intelligent edge device in use by a company. In Microsoft’s 2021 IoT Signals report, 91% of organizations surveyed cited security concerns with expanding Internet of Things (IoT) efforts. (a worthwhile read https://lnkd.in/gEq3wnmP)
The success of any industry and business inherently centers around sustainable, predictable evolution (predictable can be read as ‘secure’). By 2025, business transformation will be catalyzed by ~7 billion IoT devices being upgraded. Every business will be migrating towards IoT devices with 5G, AI and accelerated compute capabilities to empower and advance business functions, generating data at a rate to satisfy the ~180 ZB estimate. Due to Covid, IoT efforts worldwide have accelerated making it likely we blow past the heights of 180 ZBs. So as the devices grow data generation grows heightening the promise, vulnerability, and responsibility. While this is apparent to business leaders, one foundational element I repeatedly witness failing to be realized to address in IoT security is the carrier connectivity management platform (CMP). Due to the lack of a ‘truly’ global CMP, companies of every size routinely have IoT assets widely distributed across multiple carrier CMPs. Case in point, Simetric enterprise customers routinely sit on six to eight CMPs to run their internal and customer IoT operations within one geography. That means multiple views of devices, data, and operational costs. Even worse, it means a very flawed IoT security strategy.
Simetric's Security Solution
Bespoke CMPs are not only easily quantified into substantial monthly budget waste, but also are an impediment to better IoT security and actionable data control. While having IoT assets split across so many CMPs may be necessary to secure carrier connectivity, having partial views of deployments and device productivity doesn’t have to be an issue any longer. Simetric is a platform of platforms, that normalizes CMP discrepancies, empowers customers with global workflow control, heightened security measures, and enhanced device controls in a single pane of glass. Data-rich, edge-first businesses are coming. Simetric customers can rely on us for a more secure and sustainable business evolution.
