IT Pros are Concerned about Wearable Technology Connected to Company Networks

Ipswitch announced the findings of its 2015 Wearable Technology Survey that polled 288 IT professionals in the United States. The survey revealed that more than half of the respondents (52.7 percent) now have users wearing technology to work, a growing concern for IT pros.

More wearable technology, more concerns for IT pros

IT pros’ top concerns with a high adoption of wearable technology in the workplace included security breaches (61 percent), more work to support more devices (45 percent) and decreased network bandwidth (36 percent). When asked if they had IT policies in place to manage the impact of wearable technology, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) did not while about one-quarter (24 percent) did have such a policy.

The most common wearable technologies in the workplace, some of it is company-issued

Even though wearable technology has yet to break through to the mainstream, 15 percent of all respondents noted that their companies provided wearable technology to its own workers. The most popular wearable technology in the workforce, according to survey respondents, includes watches such as the Apple Watch (46 percent), fitness bands like Fitbit (42 percent) and health monitoring devices like QardioArm (17 percent).

“Wearable technology might be convenient for the user, but it’s inconvenient for IT pros to secure and support,” said Aaron Kelly, Vice President of Product Management at Ipswitch. “Fortunately, IT pros can be better prepared to deal with people like me, including my Apple Watch and Fitbit, with tools to provide total visibility into network discovery and dependency mapping including Ipswitch WhatsConnected. A clear picture of what is happening helps to ensure that wearable technology isn’t going to affect network or application performance.”

Ipswitch WhatsConnected helps IT pros monitor and manage devices including wearable technology in the following ways:

  • Understand detailed physical connectivity, device type and configuration information of anything with an IP address
  • Quickly pinpoint network performance issues visually with auto-generated topology maps
  • Automatically maintain a comprehensive network and server inventory of physical connectivity, device asset information, configuration information and systems inventory
  • Generate comprehensive reports to help meet compliance

For a free 30-day trial of Ipswitch WhatsConnected, visit http://ipswit.ch/T0DxK.

Ipswitch 2015 Wearable Technology Survey Resources

  • Full survey results: http://ipswit.ch/T0DDq
  • Infographic: http://ipswit.ch/T0DoZ

About Ipswitch

Ipswitch helps solve complex IT problems with simple solutions. The company’s software has been installed on more than 150,000 networks spanning 168 countries to monitor networks, applications and servers, and securely transfer files between systems, business partners and customers. Ipswitch was founded in 1991 and is based in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. For more information, visit www.ipswitch.com.

Ipswitch and WhatsConnected are registered trademarks of Ipswitch, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

InkHouse for IpswitchStephanie Olesen, 781-966-4100ipswitch@inkhouse.com