Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure spending is making inroads into enterprise IT budgets across a diverse set of industry verticals. International Data Corporation (IDC) has just released the results of a U.S. survey, IoT IT Infrastructure Survey, which finds that improved business offerings, IoT data management, and new networking elements are key to a successful IoT initiative within an enterprise.

The new survey examines current and future plans of IT end users for IoT infrastructure and provides analysis on IT organizations' knowledge of IoT, their plans to deploy an IoT strategy in the next 24 months, and which vendors are best suited to influence end user IoT initiatives.

"Given the strong uptake in IoT based technology solutions, enterprise IT buyers are looking for vendors who can add IoT capabilities to the current networking and edge IT infrastructure," said Sathya Atreyam, research manager, Mobile and IoT Infrastructure. "Further, success of IoT initiatives will also depend on how IT buyers can effectively leverage newer frameworks of low power connectivity mechanisms, network virtualization, data analytics at the edge, and cloud-based platforms."

Additional findings from the survey include the following:

• Telecom service providers, high-tech, manufacturing, and construction industries emerged as top verticals actively deploying IoT solutions.
• There will be a rise in demand for newer networking elements that can address the needs of IoT traffic behavior. 
• WiFi and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) are top contenders as preferred IoT connectivity mechanisms. However, long-range, wide-area networks (LoRaWAN) and narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) are equally poised to give a tough fight to WiFi and BLE vendors. 
• Data analytics, correlation, and pattern recognition capabilities at point-of-data creation proves to be a key decision factor in vendor evaluation. 
• There will be a significant shift towards edge server deployments as well as broader adoption of public cloud-based services for IoT.

"The survey revealed that IoT will have significant impact on end users' decisions and strategies related to IT infrastructure across all three major technology domains: networking, software, and storage," said Natalya Yezhkova, research director, Storage. "Increase in budgets, broader adoption of public cloud, and open source solutions are the most anticipated results of IoT initiatives."

The IDC report, IoT IT Infrastructure Survey, provides a comprehensive view of end-user needs and priorities for IoT infrastructure as it pertains to networking, connectivity, server, and storage. This survey reached more than 500 enterprises (mid-market to enterprise) across 15 industry verticals.