Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 05 | Page 36

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. 36 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.” www.intelligentcio.com www.intelligentcio.com 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 37