Mender.io CTO Eystein Måløy Stenberg shares his expert insights on the challenges faced and opportunities to improve by better addressing the needs across the life cycle of IoT device management including OTA software updates, Configuration, Monitoring and Troubleshooting.
There are 4 key stages in the IoT device management lifecycle.
These 4 stages map to 4 key processes that should happen at each stage:
Next, I examine the challenges faced by those who are managing IoT devices. Often, too much time is spent on integrating, setting up, or building homegrown device management solutions and this means that less time is spent on core product development.
Some enterprises may underestimate what it takes to build a best-of-breed device management solution and the total cost of ownership becomes higher over time because it will naturally evolve. These needs can include more advanced device management use cases or changing hardware, operating system workflow needs. You will want to spend as little time as possible on device management, and as much as possible on delighting your customers and differentiating your product to increase market share and revenue for your product.
There are typically two areas of strategic challenge:
Next, I address the really big opportunities for innovation in device management. Innovation is a continuously occurring process and this brings the benefit of allowing you to be able to change continuously and at low risk.
Next, I assess the real failings or missed opportunities in the ways in which IoT device management is done by many organisations today. Device management is too often an afterthought. It becomes a “last minute” addition to the device design, right before the production release. Typically, the engineering team discovers that some form of device management will be needed just as they rush to meet the release deadline. Only then do they realise that the product must be able to be updated and supported after the release. This often results in some kind of quickly developed “backdoor” fix being put in place. This is a band aid solution that has serious consequences for the robustness and security of the devices in the project.
Furthermore, some organisations try to adapt solutions that were built for the cloud to IoT environments. This does not work well as the IoT environment is very different from the cloud environment. This is generally down to the fact that as IoT devices have unreliable power and connectivity, you can’t easily “duplicate” or “spin up a new” IoT device if it fails. A device management solution for IoT needs to take this into account. Let’s look at an example of this. In terms of software updates, Kubernetes is often used in cloud environments. You do not care if a single container works or not, you simply discard it automatically if it fails and start a new one. This can be automated. However, if a container or OS service fails on an IoT device, that device will fail to operate properly as a whole. Again, robustness is key in IoT.
Cloud solutions also often assume that they will be placed in restrictive environments, such as behind VPCs or firewalls. In contrast, an IoT device is out there “in the wild”. It’s not only insecure but may also be directly exposed through 3rd party wireless networks. It’s also prone to physical attacks, where someone may try to physically steal the storage device and extract your proprietary algorithms or customer data. This is why security is so different in IoT environments.
Hardware and software selection is an interesting and sometimes complex journey. There is a lot to choose from and tradeoffs with price, performance and security.
Today, organisations usually solicit help from a number from 3 main sources:
The problem with source 2 and 3 is that they are incentivised to sell their own solution and will naturally narrow the selection based on what their solution supports best. They may also have auxiliary solutions they might want to sell: For example, a hardware vendor may also provide some custom IoT management software they want to sell on top of the hardware. But it’s not the core competence of the hardware vendor. This leads to inferior solutions with limited adoption and increased complexity. Number 1 will likely provide the most independent and best solution.
In the end, rest assured that standardisation in terms of hardware and software will continue over time and make life easier for IoT product companies. It is a slow trend, but it is happening. In the 90s, it was common that product companies built their own operating systems. However, new IoT products today are based on Linux or a more standard RTOS such as FreeRTOS or Zephyr. The same will happen in all areas of the stack with the effect of lowering cost where there is no differentiation.
In summary, do your planning for thorough IoT device management when designing your IoT product. Get a deep understanding of the 4 key stages of device lifecycle management from inception through to decommissioning. Robust and secure OTA software updates must be planned for immediately as it has implications for the long term security proofing and extensibility and future value of your product. You will not want to do physical updates once your devices are in the field especially when your device fleet is large. Plan for a one time initial software update and then a quarterly schedule of OTA software updates or more frequent depending on the requirements. The initial OTA software update provides the initial configuration for the device, monitoring, remote access and troubleshooting will be inexorably integrated with the OTA software process over the next 3 stages of the life cycle.
Mender 2.7, released on April 21st, is a landmark release covering a broad aspect of key device management needs through optional add-on packages. Troubleshooting features include a secure Remote terminal, File transfer and Port forward. In addition it enables support for unique device configuration with a built-in Digital Twin technology.
Mender 3.0 is anticipated in July, to support strict maintenance windows through pausing the update process at key stages. For example, by first initiating the download of the update and applying it only once all devices have downloaded, the maintenance window can shorten from days to minutes, ensuring more uptime and greatly reduced risk.”
Make contact here to learn more about the Mender roadmap for IoT device management.