What’s NEW in IOT Section | CCIE Evolving Technologies V1.1 Blueprint

In this article, you will learn about changes that are coming into Evolving Technologies V1.1.

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If you recall, Cisco published an update to Evolving Technologies section dubbed as V1.1 which has gone into effect starting Aug 30 2018. For the uninitiated, Evolving Technologies consists of three sub-sections or topics, i.e.

1. Cloud (cloud deployment and service models etc.)
2. Network Programmability (SDN/NFV, Infrastructure as Code which includes CICD and DevOps tools etc.). BTW, you can also refer to Full Stack Networker, if you prefer to deep dive into Infrastructure as Code.
3. Internet of Things (or IoT)

Now, we’ve already covered Cloud and network programmability topics, so let’s get right into Internet of Things (or IoT).

Unfortunately, Evolving Technologies V1.0 did nothing more than hand waving for IoT related topics. However, with V1.1 as Cisco seemed to have made it much more specific especially from IoT solution perspective.

INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)

Topics Added to V1.1

• Network Hierarchy and Data Acquisition and Flow
• Characteristics Within IT and OT Environments
• IoT Security (Network Segmentation, Device Profiling, and Secure Remote Access)
• IoT Edge and Fog Computing (Data Aggregation and Edge Intelligence)

Topics Removed in V1.1

• Performance, availability, and scaling considerations
• Mobility
• Security and privacy
• Standards and compliance
• Migration
• Environmental impacts on the network

Now, let me breakdown each of the newly added topics.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to the set of devices and systems that interconnect real-world sensors and actuators to the Internet. Here are a few examples.

• connected cars (e.g. Tesla EVs)
• wearable devices (e.g. Apple Watch)
• smart meters (e.g. utility meters)
• home automation systems (e.g. Nest)
• smartphones
• wireless sensor networks

There are three types of devices that make up the IoT architecture.

• IoT devices
• IoT services
• IoT gateway (low power aggregators or bridges)

Cisco IoT architectural framework includes the following key components and addresses how IoT networking can be intelligent, automated, and secure from edge to cloud.

• Standard way for IoT devices to communicate with each other
• IoT device scale
• IoT device management
• IoT device security and access controls

Now, when it comes to networking, IoT has unique challenges due to the nature of the endpoints and the sheer scale of aggregation. In order to meet those challenges, Cisco IoT/M2M architecture consists of four layers of embedded systems, multi-service edge, core network and data center cloud layers.

IoT utilizes the existing networking infrastructure, technologies and protocols along with a ton of new ones. First, let us take a look at a comparison of the internet (or TCP/IP) versus the IoT networking stack.

Following is a summary of IoT protocols, grouped together in a few layers.

Cisco IoT security via segmentation is about building a secure place to protect what you have from the known and the unknown risks on the network, and then with improved visibility you can identify and protect the IoT devices you discover. Segmentation puts these devices out of the reach of attackers and prevents these devices from being used as pivot points to move through the network if they are compromised.

Finally, let’s go over Cisco IoT edge and fog computing.

Fog computing is a distributed computing infrastructure for the IoT which extends computing capability to the edge of networks. Cisco Kinetic is an IoT software-based data fabric. Kinetic is created to extract, compute, and transport data from the things that make up the IoT to the various applications or services where it can provide tangible value. Data aggregation is a big challenge in IoT networks due to the sheer scale of IoT devices. As per Cisco’s IoT architecture, data filtering, aggregation and compression are supposed to be performed at the edge, in the fog or at the core.

When will CCIEin8Weeks release new course material?

We already did! All of our CCIE study guides and practice quizzes now include Evolving Technologies V1.1 material.

Please feel free to post your comments and questions, I will be responding to them over the next few days and weeks.

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