Why it Make Sense to Start Thinking about an IoT Operations Center in 2017? Date:   Monday , February 13, 2017 Headquartered in Bengaluru, Happiest Minds Technologies proffers next generation digital transformation, infrastructure, security & product engineering services to organizations. As IoT increasingly becomes a part of our everyday lexicon, it is also beginning to rapidly change how we create, consume and communicate. A large number of organizations have now realized the huge potential of IoT and how it can enable them to disrupt traditional business models in a way that wasn\'t imaginable before. As we move towards a world, where our cars are connected and our homes are smart, the opportunities are limitless for innovative organizations to create the ecosystem for a smart and connected world. Though people have been talking about IoT for a few years, it is only now that organizations are embracing it in a significant way by moving from the \'proof of value\' to the \'productization\' stage of their IoT journey. However, most organizations till date have focused only on those elements of IoT that have caught their fancy while overlooking certain other crucial aspects. But, if they are indeed serious about a sustained and elevated IoT experience that can enrich their customers, they will have to soon connect the dots and look at the big picture. Connectivity Management Gartner has predicted that by 2020 there will be 26 billion connected devices across the world while some estimate the number to be much higher. That is indeed a lot of connected devices even by conservative standards and the need for effective connectivity management must be reiterated. In a world where smart home owners look to control their security systems remotely, any disruption in connectivity can prove to be disastrous. A well designed IoT operations centre can use the right tools to ascertain the reasons for an event where there is connectivity failure and take the appropriate steps to remedy the issue. Device Management We have already discussed the probability of the number of devices that will be interconnected by 2020. With that huge a number, it is going to be an arduous task to ensure that all of them are working consistently with each other. In such a situation, even a minor malfunction can throw work out of gear sending the entire operation process out of control. Given that a lot of the devices may require deployment across various geographical boundaries, the operations centre managing them will not only require right tools to manage these devices in the field but must also consider the multiple stages of the lifecycle of these devices and it may need to intervene at each stage. Cloud Infrastructure Management With the huge number of connected devices predicted in future, traditional architectures seem prone to breaking down under the incredible demands placed on them to run the show. Cloud based environments which offers reliability, can face challenges with scaling up of operations and provides a faster turnaround time thus looks like a viable option for organizations to host IoT platform and the business applications in future. While connectivity charges may keep the devices from being connected all the time, the cloud infrastructure would typically be expected to be up and running 99percent of the time. A dedicated IoT operations centre in that scenario will need to address the following: Monitoring devices for scale and performance, Monitoring for uptime, Dynamic support for new protocols and new devices. Security In the dynamic business environment that we operate nowadays, security remains a major concern. Vulnerabilities are likely to increase manifold compromising the entire system and organization with the increase in number of connected devices. Thus, security must be one of the core areas of any IoT roll out. In this context one must point out that currently there are no standard security measures for an IoT device. Customer Service Customer is the king. Presenting the best possible customer experience thus elevating his quality of work and life remains the focus of all technological advancement, including IoT. While all the aspects mentioned above is of importance to an IoT operations centre, be it connectivity management, device management, cloud infrastructure management end of the day the real value it provides lies in highest level of customer satisfaction.