< PreviousFrom a market which is reaching maturity – the standardised tried and tested, M2M SIM IoT deployments - to one (for example, 5G SIM-based IoT) which is largely in its infancy, separating between those solutions that can be bought with confidence and those where continued innovation warrants discussion and consultation, may not be straightforward. And, for these latter cases, choosing the right cellular (SIM) technology and network type will require an understanding of the technical requirements for each use case and the data profile of the asset to be connected. With the definition of IoT expanding almost daily and suppliers increasingly jumping on the IoT bandwagon, this is a complex landscape, requiring knowledge, understanding and expert partnerships. Nick Sacke, Head of IoT Solutions, Comms365 explains how to navigate the maze of options to optimise and future proof your cellular IoT investments. IoT solutions utilising SIM-based cellular technology for connectivity are not new – but the speed with which IoT is expanding, embracing ever more exciting and dynamic use cases is both compelling and creating market confusion in equal measure. Nick Sacke, Head of IoT solutions at Comms365 How IoT connectivity is reaching new heights IoT connectivity www.networkseuropemagazine.com 30vity IoT connectivity www.networkseuropemagazine.com 31From M2M to 5G, a range of mature – and less mature capabilities Mass scale IoT Machine to Machine (M2M) deployments have been around for years, since the days of the inception of 2G cellular technology. Now bundled under the (increasingly broad) ‘IoT’ umbrella, the traditional M2M plastic SIM card we all recognise is giving way to soldered circuits inside the actual device, with data plans and automated network selection handled via software and sophisticated portals to manage the data estate. This is a mature market, with deployments that extend from payment for car washers and car valuation booths; washing machines for student accommodation; vending machines and refrigeration display units; to CCTV, access control, smart lighting and waste bin fill levels. These M2M SIM-based services have become standardised, they are tried and tested, reliable and practical, enabling organisations to introduce the technology into their businesses with confidence. Moving through the deployment spectrum, now using 4G and 5G where available, deployments have become much more scalable with the deployment of IoT sensors attached to machines and the bidirectional transmission of data to, and from applications, allowing companies to achieve far more granular, tracking visibility and remote management of assets such as wind turbines, heavy equipment, power generation and metering infrastructure, anywhere there is a signal. Rapidly expanding SIM network connectivity options now include Low Power WAN (LPWAN) variants such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE-M (Cat M), which have been specifically developed and incorporated into 5G standalone networks to support millions of battery- powered IoT devices in hard to reach places and are enabling enterprises to radically expand the scale of projects from Phase 1 pilots to mass deployments. Now known as ‘Massive IoT’, millions of devices and assets can be connected and, with extraordinary innovation in sensor devices, the range of use cases expands daily. Soil sensors are being used by farmers to manage scarce water resources in remote regions; sensors in concrete structures can be used both during construction to track curing and post-build, to measure compressive strain and concrete health. From water metering to air pollution, waste management and parking control, the combination of networks, devices and big data analytics is creating the foundation for everything from smart cities to sustainable agriculture. The SIM technology selected for all these use cases was based on a range of critical technical requirements including range, scalability, security and low power consumption. Time sensitive Another fast developing and innovative use case field for SIM-based IoT Networks is ‘Critical IoT’, where applications such as real-time vital signs monitoring at IoT connectivity www.networkseuropemagazine.com 32home as an extension of healthcare, require ultra-reliable data delivery and low delay in getting measurements to back-office systems (‘latency’). This application area is hugely vibrant in its development, with many technology firms delivering innovations in wearable technologies which record both vital signs (heart rate, oxygen saturation) and location, to keep track of individuals wherever they are and allow care professionals to intervene quickly in an agile, targeted way. This sector of the market will scale rapidly with the expansion of high capacity, fast, 5G networks, but given the need for reliable data transmissions typically across mobile locations, one network alone may be unlikely to deliver the quality of coverage required. Organisations will need a SIM-based technology option that can ‘roam’, ie work with more than one public network operator to hand off traffic seamlessly. Conversely, for super-low latency, high-volume operations in fixed locations, such as industry automation IoT, private 5G is now a preferred option, offering the chance to prioritise specific data traffic flows – something that is not currently an option across public 5G networks. This is compelling for factories, warehouses, stadiums and large buildings which have poor or massively contended mobile signal indoors and cannot deliver mobile data services reliably. Clearly, at the end of the spectrum, SIM-based cellular IoT is far more complex than the ‘plug and play’ experience we’ve come to rely on with our Smartphones, requiring design, planning and deployment by experts. Maximising potential With substantial growth in IoT connectivity globally, customers are now demanding simplified contracts and service models from their providers to take care of their requirements – from low power connections for sensors to high bandwidth applications to connect their real estate assets to provide primary and failover internet access. This is a complex challenge, especially internationally, due to different commercial agreements and service models among competing carriers, as well as limitations on certain types of network access on a per-country basis (almost all countries have a 4G service, but 5G is a work in progress, and low power network coverage needs to be checked for availability). Network operators need to be flexible but have not always proven to be so, allowing the growth and development of a new generation of network aggregators and smaller service providers that are geared to cater to customer needs. Aggregators are now playing a significant role in SIM-based mobile market development and growth, particularly if managed network operators (MNOs) are inflexible, by negotiating directly with multiple network operators to create a tailored, multi-network solution to support each use case. There are several questions that should be asked to qualify your provider’s capability to supply IoT, including: How long is the contract? What are the data costs and do they reflect current and future data profiles? Can one network operator provide the full coverage required for all mobile assets, both now and in the future? Can the customer benefit from access to new Low Power SIM technologies including NB- IoT, LTE-M (Cat M) or other IoT connectivity types, including non-cellular, as a blended service? Does the provider offer automation tools to configure, monitor and manage the SIM-based connectivity service, including changes? Does the SIM have automated, built-in failover to a second or third network option if the primary network fails? Is the Core Network of your provider proven to be secure against external threats? Using a confluence of different networks can be incredibly powerful as a complete solution to connect all parts of a customer’s estate, but it may require a service provider who is capable of orchestrating the multiple SIM-based technologies to acquire the right networks in the asset location and provide seamless provisioning, management and changes via automation to provide a good and reliable customer experience. Conclusion 5G will transform the landscape for SIM-based IoT. It will provide a step-change in capacity, allowing 100,000s of connections per sqkm, compared to just hundreds today. It will offer more speed, more reliability and, in time, enable the market to provide real Service Level Agreements. But with so many providers jumping on the SIM-based IoT bandwagon it is necessary to ask the right questions to make the right decision for your use case. This is a fast-evolving market. There is tremendous growth, vitality and energy in the SIM-based IoT area which is hugely exciting. However, in the quest for innovation, let us not forget the mature M2M SIM IoT deployments that offer huge opportunities for business transformation with confidence. Fundamentally, across the broad IoT spectrum, it is vital to understand the use cases, applications, technologies and commercials before making final decisions about suppliers and providers. IoT connectivity www.networkseuropemagazine.com 33We all understand that entering the health system as a patient can be stressful. Throughout the pandemic, no matter what the condition, whether awaiting diagnosis, treatment or a scheduled check-up, the impact is acutely understood. Digital healthcare is at a pivotal point from the perspective of technological innovations facilitating improvements in disease treatment, improved individual well- being and personalised care. A new age of predictive care beckons Healthcare systems worldwide will be expected to deliver diagnostics and care that is both predictive and proactive. Connected care and bioinformatics commentators, including the World Economic Forum annual meeting (2020), forecast that these innovations will be enabled and enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data-driven analytics. In the very near future, the application of advanced analytics, including AI and ML, will greatly improve clinical decision-making and patient care outcomes. Analysing patient health records alongside vast datasets that cover populations, conditions, countries, environmental factors, virology data and more, will be leveraged to help manage a myriad of health conditions. Gartner states, “Demands for care collaboration and coordination across the ecosystem are increasing the demand for real-time data, insight and workflow optimisation and orchestration.” This is resulting in foundational technologies, such as real-time health systems (Hype Cycle for RTHS Technologies - subscription required). The analyst predicts that in the coming years, “healthcare will be characterised by a reengineering of clinical care and operations around digital health and pervasive, real-time use of data to achieve goals.” How Will Data Centre Innovations Materially Affect Healthcare Experiences? Sustainability and our day-to- day healthcare are becoming increasingly intertwined. Innovations in AI, digital infrastructure, and data security are determining the quality of our healthcare service, so how is it changing? Pascal Holt, Director of Marketing at Iceotope healthcare experiences www.networkseuropemagazine.com 34ntre rially healthcare experiences www.networkseuropemagazine.com 35Understandably, healthcare providers and medical teams alike are excited about the potential for AI-powered diagnostics and precision medicine. Primarily, this is because of what it means for improvements in patient care – especially when so many countries expect the continuation of care to be extended to meet the needs of a larger population of senior citizens in years to come. The future is data-driven patient care Clinical informatics, for example, uses data and a range of tools to support health professionals. These include data analytics, preventing hospital patients from having accidents on wards, and running systems for storing and sharing X-rays, as well as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Within a few years, AI will be used to access data sources and reveal patterns in disease, aiding treatment and patient care programmes. AI-driven data analytics and resource-intensive task automation will enable public and private healthcare providers to increase productivity and efficiency of care delivery, at the same time enhancing resource use, reducing waiting times and tackling employee burnout. Transformational technologies such as Digital Health Platforms (DHP), will enable healthcare providers to quickly respond to external uncertainty as well as planned change. They can do this using cloud- first healthcare applications and tools that bring together Electronic Health Records (EHR), data connectivity and powerful analytics. By doing so, they can address strategic issues for providers, where monolithic EHR-centric application architecture fails to meet changing patient and clinical workforce demands. It is believed that DHP will reduce EHR total cost of ownership (TCO), releasing data for deeper insight and delivering improved and lower-cost outcomes. There is no doubt that to facilitate change, strategic partnerships – ecosystems – must develop between healthcare providers, technology companies, data centre service providers and associated organisations to drive this digital transformation. Many in healthcare already see the positive results of investment in AI as a powerful enabler of operational efficiency, which leads to better diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. In addition to solving the challenges of integrating and provisioning healthcare systems, while offering a potentially faster route to shorter queues for treatment and less pressure on healthcare resources and personnel, ecosystems could also offer a solution to clinical HR shortages. With Health Education England forecasting that they need to fill a skills gap of a staggering 672% to meet the anticipated requirement for a ‘digital workforce’ in the coming decade, technology professionals in the IT channel could be of strategic importance by providing critical support. Healthcare needs data, data needs infrastructure The data demands of AI and ML-driven applications will rely on higher density processor chips, especially high-density GPUs to provide the real-time grunt to ensure the swift delivery of processes like data capture, analysis and interpretation. The majority of PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) Administrators and IT departments have probably never seen density requirements like healthcare experiences www.networkseuropemagazine.com 36those demanded by today’s power-hungry chips, not least have the capability to accommodate these requirements within their current IT infrastructure. IT transformation, mobile devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) are also creating enormous volumes of data globally. IDC predicts that in 2025, 175 zettabytes (175 trillion gigabytes) of new data will be created around the world, while Gartner is forecasting that more than 75% of enterprise data will be generated and processed outside of the traditional data centre. A rising phenomenon of ‘data gravity’ is drawing the physical location of analytics, software applications and IT hardware towards the data source itself. This is creating a whole new set of challenges in healthcare, which must be overcome to support the patient anywhere from the doctor’s surgery to the emergency room, operating theatre and hospital ward, right up to the bedside. ‘A year in the life of the NHS AI Lab’, 2020, illustrated that diagnostics had the most prevalent use of AI within the NHS. This marks the beginning of the use of deep learning (DL), ML and categorisation technology on enormous sets of medical images to create workflows and algorithms. While this will allow for faster and more accurate outputs at the point of care, it also means that an increasing amount of data processing also needs to be done at the healthcare edge. In turn, this gives rise to a range of additional challenges from power, space and acoustics, to physical and data security. Digital healthcare and sustainability As the reported producer of the equivalent of 4.4% of global net emissions, the healthcare sector faces its own sustainability challenges. At the same time, data centres have recently come under the spotlight for the rising demand on power grids all over the world. Put together, these add up to greater IT infrastructure challenges. Healthcare leaders are set to prioritise sustainable initiatives, with projected cost savings as an additional driver, which many believe go hand-in-hand with technology advancements. Since the data centre industry provides services and infrastructure to support the digital transformation of almost every sector, it is also set to inherit a substantial proportion of its sustainability challenges. Data centres exist to process, store and transmit data as efficiently as possible, enhancing the benefit for customers and owners. For the provider of data centre services, the highest operating expense is electricity – the cost to power and cool the IT equipment and its supporting environment. Depending on the source of its grid supply, the data centre industry has also been highlighted as a growing source of GHG emissions. However, the projected introduction of increased renewable energy sources into the grid energy mix will not only substantially reduce carbon footprint, but also help hedge the industry from price and supply volatility. At the same time, it will help increase resilience as dependence on imported fossil fuels is reduced. Hotter chips mean a new cooling paradigm to deliver advanced healthcare promise In the coming years, the exponential upsurge in data processing necessary to extract patient insights from large datasets will continuously drive the requirement for higher power compute densities. CPU power consumption is on the rise, with Thermal Design Power (TDP) mapped to reach 400+ watts - resulting in hotter chips and higher rack densities. Increasing the use of high-power GPUs alongside the CPU to accelerate computational workloads is also resulting in much higher power consumption and is driving the need for a fundamental review of thermal management in the data centre and at the edge. Currently, the predominant way to remove heat from IT server equipment is by inefficient cool air drawn through the chassis, using numerous internal electrical fans to satisfy the higher density processors within the servers. Even the most efficient air-cooling systems cannot cope with the requirement of CPUs with mapped TDP of 400+ watts. Simply blowing more cool air at the problem is not practical, efficient, or sustainable. The efficiency of compute also requires the collaboration between servers, data centres, interconnectivity and the customer, to understand how best to move, process and store data. HPC and supercomputer level computations require specific layouts that increase the need for direct-to-component cooling. The industry-standard measurement of data centre efficiency - PUE - has plateaued over the past 5 years. The continued use of air cooling is a roadblock preventing both the use of additional high-density ITE as well as more efficient operations throughout the data centre industry. A step-change in cooling technology is needed and today, liquid cooling alone is the only system that can take up the mantle to enable digital transformation inside and outside the data centre. In doing so, it can provide the transformation needed to deliver high-quality, personalised healthcare delivery efficiently, sustainably and cost-effectively. healthcare experiences www.networkseuropemagazine.com 37an uninterruptible success story The evolution of UPS technology ups technology www.networkseuropemagazine.com 38While the history of UPSs is somewhat shrouded in mystery, with no clear date for the invention and no inventor who can claim it, they have been manufactured at Eaton’s plant in Finland since 1962. Since then, they have come a long way, with Eaton alone creating over 200 patented innovations related to backup power and power conversion technology. And thanks to recent advances, UPSs can now also play a decisive role in making the energy transition happen. What is a UPS? A UPS is a power electronic device with a battery at its core, that has two basic functions: backing up and cleaning up the power supply. It functions as a sort of insurance for electrical loads, making it a vital component in ensuring business continuity. In the event of a short blackout, a UPS protects critical equipment by continuing to supply it with power from batteries, typically for five to 30 minutes, thereby bridging the gap until a generator starts. During longer power outages, it allows for graceful shutdowns to avoid damage or loss of data. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) are a crucial piece of technology wherever critical or sensitive equipment requires constant and clean power, from medical facilities and data centres to emergency and industrial processing systems. Janne Paananen - Technology Manager Large Systems Group – Eaton Power Quality Europe, Middle East and Africa Region ups technology www.networkseuropemagazine.com 39Next >