The Internet of Things (IoT) is seeing explosive growth. According to Cisco’s Annual Internet Report, by 2023, we’ll see close to 16 billion global IoT connections. That’s a 19 percent annual growth rate over a five-year period! And along with this growth, we are seeing a fundamental shift in IT where IoT is adopting the network protocols and methods of the IT organization. At the same time, IT organizations are beginning to support operational requirements used by IoT, creating a convergence of these two technologies.
But this growth isn’t without its challenges. As many enterprises adopt IoT, they are coming to the realization that it brings about a set of new deployment and management complexities as well as costs associated with managing a separate IoT overlay network.
Catalyst 9100 Access Points: delivering digital transformation at scale
To address these complexities, Cisco has introduced Application Hosting, or App Hosting, on the Cisco Catalyst 9100 Series Access Points. App Hosting enables customers to simplify their IoT deployments by allowing them to run IoT applications directly on the access point and eliminate the need to install and manage the above-mentioned overlay networks. With App Hosting, Cisco’s latest generation of Wi-Fi 6 access points become multi-lingual platforms with diverse capabilities and services to address the needs of a fragmented world of IoT protocols.
Docker Applications provide simplified deployment, management and updates
The whole approach to App Hosting is simplicity and this same philosophy wasn’t lost on the application. App Hosting makes use of Docker-style applications which give IT organizations the flexibility to build and deploy their own application or choose from a rich ecosystem of IoT application partners. With this flexibility, IT teams can realize faster and more scalable IoT deployments with quicker application installation.
![](https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images/ciscoblogs/1/2020/09/IoT-AppHosting1.png)
Cisco DNA Center delivers holistic IoT management
Management for applications is simplified as well through Cisco DNA Center, which provides deployment of hosted applications and consistent workflows to control the entire application across its lifecycle management. Cisco DNA Center also provides advanced visibility of the application, its status, the availability of the container, and more. Together with assurance and analytics for wired and wireless networks, Cisco DNA Center provides holistic control of the entire network from a single-pane-of-glass.
![](https://storage.googleapis.com/blogs-images/ciscoblogs/1/2020/09/IoT-AppHosting2.png)
Get more information about Application Hosting.
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Good read