A Flexible, Scalable IT Infrastructure Is Essential to Smart City Success
The concept of a “smart city” – one that uses technology to continuously collect and analyze data to improve people’s lives – is not new. For the most part, however, smart city initiatives have been limited to a handful of innovator cities and small-scale or pilot projects. Many of these projects have been focused on very specific use cases, and smart city technology hasn’t been fully integrated with the city’s IT infrastructure.
Today, the smart city movement is going mainstream. Adoption is expanding, especially in midsize cities, as awareness grows and more people recognize the opportunities to improve public safety, service delivery, energy efficiency and disaster preparedness. Despite the recent uptick in adoption, however, cities are facing serious challenges, both political and practical.
A number of different stakeholder groups are involved in developing a complex smart city strategy, including government officials, citizens, business leaders, technology vendors and service providers. All parties need to buy into a cohesive vision for what a smart city will achieve. Also, many city agencies operate in silos, and not just from a technological perspective. This introduces a different set of challenges, from decision-making to budgeting to clarifying roles and responsibilities.
Why Robust Infrastructure Is Critical
Many organizations lack the IT infrastructure to launch and scale a smart city initiative. A strong technological foundation is necessary to support and seamlessly integrate different types of hardware and applications from a variety of vendors. Municipalities often have outdated, fragmented infrastructure that wasn’t designed to meet the high demands of a smart city.
Again, scalability is key as a smart city relies on vast amounts of data to feed into advanced analytics platforms and artificial intelligence-driven solutions. This requires a highly flexible, agile infrastructure with modular components that are capable of scaling as data volume increases and new applications and services are added. Data from a wide range of sources must then be pulled together to deliver the insights needed to meet strategic goals and provide the services citizens need.
Cisco DNA for Cities
Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA) for Cities is an intent-based network platform that makes it possible to deliver and access pubic services with anytime, anywhere connectivity. Cisco DNA for Cities fortifies your infrastructure with an open, software-driven foundation that simplifies network operations across your smart city. Instead of trying to connect the dots between disparate agency systems, Cisco DNA for Cities enables you to leverage analytics and automation to innovate faster through a single, secure architecture.
From the Cisco DNA Center network management platform, administrators have full visibility into smart city technology and services. They can provision and configure all network devices, monitor the network, and use analytics for troubleshooting and optimization. With Cisco DNA for Cities solutions for lighting, parking, the environment, safety and more, you can improve the speed and effectiveness of emergency response, control energy consumption, reduce security risks even as network traffic grows, and deliver public services and information through apps and push notifications.
Smart city projects have the potential to change lives if cities can overcome the complexity and infrastructure challenges that have plagued many early adopters. Let Cerium show you how Cisco DNA for Cities can help you take advantage of seamless connectivity, full integration and network intelligence to deliver on the promise of a smart city.
