Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 22 | Page 35

////////////////////////// Africonology CEO Mandla Mbonambi There are seven layers that lie within the Internet of Things; people and process, applications, data analytics, data ingestions, global infrastructure, the quality of connectivity and edge computing, and things. The goal is to unlock how to make sense of these layers within IoT by determining what type of testing is required. With the right systems in place, every problem can become an opportunity. The proliferation of IoT devices and software projects necessitates a sufficiently equipped testing specialist. It also asks that there are strategies in place to address the emergence of these new challenges around usability, integration, interoperability, performance and synchronisation. The human element is critical to unlocking this potential by looking at the entire IoT ecosystem. It is the ‘why’ that’s capable of pulling the threads of security, performance, compatibility, interoperability and data integrity into a cohesive pattern. Testing is required to find the loopholes that may exist within the network of devices, platforms and systems. Already there are real-world examples of how this has changed business parameters and problems. The business must know exactly how reliable its solutions and ecosystems are and how viable within the real world. And they need insight into customer responses. The game has changed. It is the ‘all eyes on you’ market. It’s the time to examine capability and delivery, to test automation and to invest in the right tools. These are the steps towards assessing the health of your ecosystem and ensuring your customers are happy. To effectively fulfil the remit of IoT, the organisation must move away from traditional quality assurance methodologies towards intensive quality engineering. This is the new roadmap, the one that blends the why of the human with the ‘how’ of the technology to determine the results of IoT. n INTELLIGENTCIO 35