[2023] Remotely Manage IoT Devices over Life Cycle

IoT devices have influenced everyone by enhancing wearables, smart city projects, digital cars, and smart homes. IoT devices can connect to a network wirelessly to collect and share data with other devices on the internet using embedded sensors.

Commercially, IoT devices are mostly used as monitoring systems. Remote management of IoT devices in businesses increases the efficiency of work.

This article will cover the remote administration of Internet of Things devices, their significance in many businesses, and the greatest problems associated with their use. We will also explore the optimal remote management techniques for IoT devices.

Successful Enterprise IoT Strategy

IoT remote management is a way to monitor and manage the operations of IoT devices. An IoT remote management system is totally responsible for all the operations of IoT devices including provisioning, authentication, configuration, monitoring and maintenance.

Hence, without an authentic remote management solution, it is impossible for organizations to understand and operate the functions of IoT devices. Remote management solutions also help to diagnose the issues and address them before time to avoid wastage of time and cost.

Benefits for Different Industries

Remote management of IoT devices is essential in every industry. Centralized remote maintenance of IoT Devices is enabled using remote management solutions, and it also enables control of the devices needed at any time.

Healthcare

IoT devices in the healthcare industry handle various operations. Digital wristbands connected to smartphones show the heartbeat, blood pressure, sleep time, steps taken, and other information.

These elements help doctors to examine the health condition of patients easily and also keep motivating the patients to maintain good health.

With remote management solutions, doctors can remotely examine patients' health anytime and provide suitable treatment even in emergencies.

Transportation & Logistics

IoT devices play a vital role in the transportation and logistics industry. Remotely monitoring the IoT devices enables the managers to check the cargo condition like temperature and humidity.

As sensitive items must be kept at a specific temperature, thus managing the IoT devices can save the company from a great loss.

Similarly, using IoT location technologies, companies can track the current location and speed of the vehicles and then estimate the arrival or departure time accordingly. All these operations make working smooth and fast.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector is always under pressure to increase productivity and reduce costs, keeping the quality factor involved, and it takes much work to manage because of high competition.

IoT helps the manufacturing industry increase work efficiency, reduce downtime, and improve workplace safety. IoT devices provide predictive maintenance to avoid equipment failure in the manufacturing sector.

With the help of such maintenance, several factors are calculated to check if the machine can run under normal conditions. Various IoT Sensors help in machine health monitoring and future failure detection.

Hence, monitoring and controlling the working of IoT devices in the manufacturing industry is as essential as in other industries.

Agriculture

No doubt, IoT technology has given promising results in the agriculture industry. The use of latest technologies has made farmers' work easier and more effective otherwise, they have to work hard in the fields, and due to a lack of modern equipment they were also unable to produce maximum food to earn.

The use of modern-day sensors to check weather conditions, soil fertility, and water level in tanks are all possible due to IoT achievements. There are devices to check the seed growth, and the time required by the seed to grow into a plant can also be examined using IoT devices.

Management of such devices is crucial as a farmer's life depends on the crops. Moreover, it is also essential to fulfill the need for food for every country.

How Does IoT Remote Management Work?

IoT remote management is handled through five basic steps to make it perfect. Here is a list of five steps for the best IoT remote management tool:

1. Provisioning and Authentication

2. Configuration and Control

3. Monitoring

4. Maintenance

5. Termination of Device

Provisioning and Authentication

Provisioning is enrolling a device in a new system that initially demands the device to connect to the internet. Authentication is a security measure to check if the device has trusted software by an authorized developer.

Configuration and Control

Configuration includes some settings on the device to make it able to work smoothly. Controlling the device is the most crucial part of this process, including proper functioning and the ability to reset and secure the device from threats.

Monitoring

Any device can face software bugs, so it is essential first to recognize the issues and then resolve them. It is also important to monitor the device to keep it safe from future issues.

Maintenance

For the proper functioning of a device, it is mandatory to keep the device updated with the latest software configurations as sometimes new functionalities are added to the device with the updated software that proves more helpful.

Termination of Device

You may consider what will happen to the device after the IoT project is completed. Proper measures must be taken to decommission the device from IoT-related authentications. The security factors must be kept in mind as the device has many data related to the project.

Software for IoT Remote Management

IoT remote management software is a solution to safeguard, control and monitor physical IoT devices. It provides security measures and permissions to secure the data on each connected device.

It enables the devices to automatically update the software to add more functionality to the devices. It also provides the facility to utilize all the devices more productively.

IT administrators primarily use these solutions, and some businesses may hire an IoT administrator to monitor each connected device's performance and general health.

How to Remotely Manage IoT Devices throughout Their Entire Lifecycle?

4. 1 AirDroid Business

Android devices are used worldwide, and almost every industry digitally manages its operations using Android devices as they are cheaper and available in a wide variety. So it is better to manage these assets with secure and sophisticated device management software that handles all your issues related to your professional work.

AirDroid Business MDM solution is a remote monitoring and management tool for IoT devices that can use Android operating system. There is a vast list of features that AirDroid Business provides but let's view some important features concerned with remote IoT device management.

Suitable Industries & Business Size:

1. IT Industry

2. Software Industry

3. Healthcare

4. Logistics and Transportation

5. Hospitality

Manage Apps Updates & Patches on Android Corporate Endpoints

AirDroid Business MDM solution has an App management feature. Using the force installation feature, you can automatically update the apps to the latest version whenever available to make all the connected devices up-to-date and fully functional.

You can install the patch to Android devices in batch by using the file transfer feature. AirDroid Business MDM keeps your devices secure from cyber-attacks and malicious content, reducing the security risks to your enterprises.

Remote Monitoring & Controlling from a Centralized Dashboard

This tool provides a user-friendly interface of the dashboard from where admins can remotely monitor and control all the connected devices.

With the help of it, you can remotely control different operations on the connected device e.g. remotely change the wallpapers and theme of the devices and can control the devices remotely to troubleshoot various issues on the devices.

You can also track the location of devices and set a virtual geo-fence for certain geographical locations to get alerts when the device is in restricted areas.

Minimize downtime

Businesses can provide remote support to the concerned devices with the help of this tool so that any issues encountered during working can be resolved in early time without any delay.

4.2 AWS IoT Device Management

AWS IoT device management tool is adopted worldwide as it provides more than 200 services. It offers the most services and features, from core technologies like computing, storage, and databases to new technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence, data lakes and analytics, and the Internet of Things.

Businesses can move their current apps to the cloud and build almost anything quicker, simpler, and cheaper. AWS is a secure tool supporting ninety-eight security standards and certifications, and all the services of AWS enable businesses to encrypt the data that makes the system secure.

Businesses can get various features while managing IoT devices. AWS's device location features help to track the IoT devices connected to it. Device location feature streamlines and automates the maintenance of IoT devices.

AWS provides businesses the authentication and authorization for all the devices connected to it to keep the data secure and never exchanged. The message broker feature enables users to send and receive messages up to a large number of.

Suitable Industries & Business Size:

1. Marketing

2. Automotive Industry

3. Educational Industry

4. Home Appliances

4.3 Azure IoT Hub

Azure offers a communication channel for sending and receiving data from IoT devices and keeps the data safe. It establishes communication with IoT devices and set a route for messages.

Automatically resending the messages if needed and tracking message delivery are its bonus features. With Azure, enhance the IoT device's security by connecting them to IoT Hub using virtual networks.

The Azure Defender is a unique feature for IoT devices to reduce risk. To simplify the IoT app development, fully integrate with the Azure Event Grid, and build Hybrid IoT applications, it provides the Azure IoT Edge. Azure IoT Hub has no upfront cost, and you only pay for what you use.

Suitable Industries & Business Size:

1. Software Industry

2. Information Technology

4.4 ThingWorx IIoT

It is a purpose-built tool built to resolve all business-related issues and make working smooth. All companies face many challenges when working in a market; the only solution to their problems is IIoT solutions.

Thus, ThingWorx IIoT has been designed to keep all those common problems in mind and provide a managed workflow.

ThingWorx IIoT supports the digital management, engineering, service, and manufacturing industry to reduce costs and increase work efficiency. It also provides maximum flexibility in every industry to improve quality and reliability.

Suitable Industries & Business Size:

1. Service Industry

2. Manufacturing Industry

3. Digital Management Industry

ThingWorx IoT management tool is best for small businesses due to its features.

Major Challenges of Managing IoT Devices Remotely

Cyber Security

Cyber security is a major concern while managing IoT devices remotely. It is essential to enroll the devices to protect company data; otherwise, anyone can breach the companies' confidential data.

Authentication confirms the device's network membership and prevents unauthorized access to the IoT network that is attempted using specific keys or passwords.

Power, Resources Consumption

IoT devices process all the time, and remote monitoring is also a serious need. Regular battery power is consumed for all this processing, and electricity is required without breakage. Hence, proper battery health monitoring is required for secure remote management of IoT devices.

Other than the electricity consumption, a physical storage space is required to the IoT devices. A remote server is connected to manage the content on the IoT. Server also requires huge amount of energy just like other data canters.

Inadequacy of Policy

Inadequate rules and improper security measures are also major issues while remotely managing IoT devices. No legislation can limit and control the attacks on the security of IoT devices.

IoT Communication Protocols

Since the Internet of Things (IoT) is trending among IT professionals, just like IoT remote management solutions, we will take a quick look at the most popular communication protocols currently being utilized by IoT devices for remote access over the internet.

Cellular

Cellular is one of the best alternatives for long-distance deployments and one of the most popular Internet of Things options. Despite the phaseout of 2G and 3G networks, 4G/LTE and 5G networks are rapidly expanding.

They have high quality and are always available on mobile networks. Many Internet of Things applications benefits from its huge data transmission. These attributes cost monetarily and ecologically.

DDS

Data Distribution Service is a protocol designed by the Object Management Group (OMG). This M2M standard has the publish-subscribe architecture to provide scalable and efficient real-time data sharing.

Business and critical IoT applications need a low-latency data connection, exceptional dependability, and a scalable architecture provided by DDS, which OMG characterizes as a middleware protocol and API standard for data-centric connectivity.

LoRaWAN

Long-range wireless battery-operated IoT devices use Long Range Wide Area Network protocol in regional, national, or global networks. It communicates long-distance with little power consumption.

In smart cities, this protocol is used for low-cost mobile secure communication in IoT devices, a huge network of millions of devices that consume less power and memory, and various industrial applications.

Conclusion

IoT devices are operational to perform various tasks for small to large enterprises. The working of all the IoT devices is similar, but they perform different tasks. The most important tip for IoT device users is to focus on the 3 C's, i.e., communication, community, and collaboration.

For secure working, change the default passwords and ensure the software is protected. Remotely managing and controlling IoT devices is a serious concern that can be handled using the best IoT device management software.