FEATURE
FEATURE
It is designed for
embedded devices
and aimed at three
key industries,
telecommunication,
automotive and industrial
face and the opportunities that are
present are common to both the
developed and developing nations.
The immediate benefits can be
realised in industries that do not
already have a high penetration of
technology,” says SAP Africa’s Sita. For
SAP in Africa, key market segments
driving demand for IoT solutions are
agriculture including crop growth and
distribution of farm products, smart
city and citizen services, and health
and safety during construction.
Kaspersky Lab Africa’s Badenhorst
points out, “KasperskyOS has been
designed for embedded devices in key
industries including automotive and
industrial. KasperskyOS was built with
security for safety paradigm in mind and
this approach is ideal for the modern
and future automotive industry, which
will consist of connected vehicles.”
Drivers
Fortinet Africa’s Hutton, believes that
Platform as a Service, is the way that
Africa will move forward, being driven
by the IoT opportunity but hampered
by the lack of technology skills. “In
many cases, African entrepreneurs
acknowledge the requirements for
systems to enable their businesses and
people. Due to the lack of operational
skills, more and more businesses and
institutions are leaning towards Platform
as a Service.” The demand around IoT
solutions will drive the development
of PaaS for application, integration,
IoT management, orchestration and
business process management.
Frost & Sullivan’s Deepti, lists
another opportunity area that can
help accelerate the adoption of IoT
solutions across sub-Saharan Africa.
This includes steadily growing data
connectivity, especially with mobile
communications penetration in
Seychelles, Mali, Gabon, Botswana,
South Africa, Libya and Tunisia.
Fadzai Deda, Best Practices Research
Analyst, Digital Transformation at
Frost & Sullivan, points out another
driver is the overall interest in
smart city solutions around traffic
management and congestion.
Inhibitors On a global level the
proliferation of platforms and
frameworks may be useful
for innovation but for Africa
this lack of standardisation
is counterproductive. “What
Africa needs is adoption of
an open standards framework
for IoT connectivity between
machines, sensor providers,
network providers and
platform and application
solutions,” says Sita.
However, the large scale of mass that
is Africa and such an opportunity for
growth and development, also works
against the proliferation of IoT. SAP
Africa’s Sita, explains that Africa has Moreover, IoT deployment is
not possible without adequate
bandwidth connecting urban
and rural areas and with data
transmission in real time.
INTELLIGENTCIO
The most common IoT use cases and threats in retail.
(Source The Internet of Things: Today and Tomorrow, HP Enterprise)
Africa needs
adoption
of open
standards
for IoT
connectivity
between
machines,
sensors,
networks,
platforms and
applications
(Left to right) Morten Illum, Aruba HPE; Perry Hutton, Fortinet Africa;
Riaan Badenhorst, Kaspersky Lab Africa; Umesh Sita, SAP Africa.
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countries with varying laws
and rules protecting data.
“The challenge is to build
the trust, first in
organisations and then
in local and national
governments, that data
generated and transmitted
by IoT devices to IoT cloud
platforms are done in a
secure manner and adhere to
the countries legislation.”
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Transmissions must reach into buildings
and inside underground mines. “There
is no one provider that can do it all,
so understanding the role players and
the cost-benefit of each technology
will provide a sense of security that a
reliable communication layer can be
adopted,” adds Sita.
Frost & Sullivan’s Fadzai, explains that
early adopters with the necessary
IT skills tend to implement IoT as
siloed, focusing on one aspect of the
business. The typical approach is
to procure piece technologies from
vendors in order to build a complete
IoT solution. “Integration of these
technologies may not be successful
due to the lack of common standards,
protocols, and technologies, leaving
the enterprise wary of investing in any
other form of IoT platform.”
Frost & Sullivan’s Deepti, believes there
is low awareness and understanding
in Africa about how an end-to-end
IoT implementation can benefit the
entire business. “This is one of the main
inhibitors against the adoption of IoT
in Africa.” For small businesses, lack
of financial resources and lack of in-
house skills, continues to restrain their
adoption of IoT. Potential exposure to
cyberattacks is another inhibitor.
Fortinet Africa’s Hutton points out
that incumbent service providers are
also to the blame by, “ham stringing
their service users by not being
forward thinking and not embracing
the idea of providing networks that
are IoT centric.” Another fallacy is
businesses have been converted into
thinking that IoT will damage their
organisations, when in actual fact it
just has to be managed, like every
other device. Kaspersky Lab Africa’s
Badenhorst, believes that lack of
telecommunication infrastructure
and broadband availability is a
major inhibitor.
“As Africa becomes more familiar with
connectivity, cybercriminals will start
to pay attention to the African market
in the hopes that these regions are
not as aware of cybercriminals tactics
compared to the rest of the world. This
of course leaves people and businesses
vulnerable to cyberattacks. While we
have seen some African countries
starting to understand the seriousness
of cybercrime, more needs to be done
across Africa, in terms of awareness.
This is why Kaspersky Lab is placing
a strong focus on the African region,”
says Badenhorst. ¡
INTELLIGENTCIO
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