Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author’s employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.

Cisco estimates 50 billion devices and objects will be connected to the Internet by 2020. And that estimate may be low. If consumers count every device that draws power in their home – lamps, light bulbs, kitchen gadgets – and then factor in objects at work, there may be many more billions of connected devices by then.

But the problem is, many traditional networks are still manual, static and complex, which isn’t ideal for IoT.  To realize the promise of a hyper-connected future, three shifts must take place.

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