Figure1: Azure Sphere delivers a Linux platform which consists of hardware built around a secured silicon chip.
Modern cloud services have ushered nuances in the world of IoT by enriching intelligent technologies at home and work. Improving the way we live and how we optimize business solutions. IoT supports first class sensors that communicate bidirectionally with cloud service leaders like Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud Platform.
There are many applications with IoT, like smart thermostats, security sensors and more. Allow me to preface this article regarding smart thermostats, which are providing customers convenience, and cost benefits. This has sparked the interest of organizations like Hitachi, and Honeywell who have mature products that provide various features, including remote access from anywhere and voice control.
Figure 1.0
In this article you will learn the following:
- IoT device examples (Figure 1.0)
- What is IoT
- Microsoft Azure IoT hub
- IoT edge modules
- IoT edge analytics/ML
What is IoT?
Internet of things represents a network hybrid of connected and disconnected devices with the cloud (online services) e.g. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. IoT technologies pace of innovation has accelerated since its inception to include but not limited to smart sensors, smart homes, and with the power of AI has brought the future to our doorstep due to its machine learning capabilities.
Use cases:
Sub-Zero, wolf, and cove have been in the consumer goods industry with over 75 years of wisdom.Sub-Zero Inc. has modernized their appliances using Microsoft’s IoT services which accelerate development, monitoring, and implementation. They are using a robust ecosystem of microservices all while securing their customers data from end to end.What is the IoT Hub?
Microsoft Azure’s IoT hub is a IoT device’s back end cloud-based service that centralizes managing IoT devices at scale. IoT hub supports bidirectional secure communications, device to cloud and cloud to device features, like remote sensor commands, routing, and powerful transformations.Note: Azure provides several tools to quickly develop the IoT hub- Portal
- CLI
- SDKs
- Cloud shell IDE
IoT Edge delivers the future...
Microsoft Azure IoT Edge distributes the future of intelligent “smart devices” from the cloud to the device. Azures IoT Edge can deliver API’s, functions, analytics, and machine learning. Apple, and Google mobile device customers can consume the data exposed by these custom APIs’ to make informed decisions. You simply package and deploying your business logic using Docker and the IoT hub to an IoT edge compatible device.A critical component of IoT edge are the IoT edge modules that run your business logic. The IoT edge runtime (built-in) installs your deployed workload, manages communication, reports overall health, and maintains security.
Consider the following prerequisites:
Use an IoT edge simulated device for non-production scenarios(IoT edge built-in real devices are optional).- Run Azure IoT Edge online with Azure VM’s
- Run on your local machine for testing purposes
- Windows, MacOS, or Linux
- Visual Studio Code
- Visual Studio
- Azure IoT Tools
- Docker extension
- Programing language agnostic (options are limited**)
- Azure container registry
- IoT Edge simulator
IoT Edge modules & analytics
Azure's IoT stream analytics edge module
Traditionally sensor generated data is sent to backend applications or services hosted in Azure’s IoT ecosystem. Data scientists then build data models and use powerful machine learning classification algorithms to develop actionable insights. Recently modern innovation has led to breakthroughs where analytics is now possible at the edge. Microsoft Azure’s analytics services coupled with ML models can run on the edge, initializing data mining processes and delivering cutting edge features to IoT edge supported devices anywhere in the world.
