We are at a tipping point in IoT where enterprises are moving from proof of concepts to production. Today, they can manage IoT applications at scale, collecting massive amounts of data and reasoning over this data in real time to optimize processes, environments, and create new solutions. In addition, devices and sensors are becoming more sophisticated and able to run AI at the edge, creating new opportunities for breakthroughs in key industries like agriculture, smart manufacturing, smart buildings and spaces, and more.
This April we announced a $5B investment in IoT and intelligent edge to innovate in new products, solutions, partnerships, programs, and more that make it easier for our customers to take advantage of IoT. We’re proud of the pace of innovation to deliver on this for our customers. Building on the momentum, we’ve delivered new breakthroughs in IoT and edge, including Azure Sphere and Azure Digital Twins, as well as brought Azure IoT Edge, Azure Maps, and Azure IoT Central to general availability.
Today at our Connect(); developer conference, we are announcing additional capabilities to bring rich data streams into IoT applications from cloud to edge, as well as solutions to accelerate the IoT development process.
New capabilities to manage and leverage data in IoT solutions
- Azure Stream Analytics on IoT Edge now generally available: Azure Stream Analytics (ASA) bring powerful stream processing capabilities to Azure IoT Edge, enabling developers to process data and respond to conditions locally. ASA on Azure IoT Edge makes it easy to move analytics between edge and cloud, which can be critical in scenarios where customers need low-latency command and control, have limited connectivity to the cloud, have limited bandwidth, or have certain compliance needs.
- IoT Edge enclave security promise in public preview: We’re now offering a way to do confidential computing – or protecting data and code while in use – via Open Enclave SDK for devices at the edge. Open Enclave is integrated with Azure IoT Edge security manager, making it accessible for edge developers.
- Azure Time Series Insights New Features in public preview: Azure Time Series Insights is a fully managed end-to-end IoT analytics solution that empowers customers to quickly glean insights from billions of time series measurements generated by IoT devices. To help maximize the value of this data and thereby drive operational intelligence, Microsoft is updating Time Series Insights offering to support a broad range of industrial IoT data analytics scenarios. Customers can now add rich contextualization to incoming telemetry data through time series models to drive operational insights, store their IoT data in multi-layered storage – warm or cold depending on their applications’ needs, and seamlessly integrate with advanced machine learning and analytics solutions to drive predictive analytics. Time Series Insights adds enhanced user experience that combines asset-based operational insights with rich ad-hoc analytics. As part of this release, Microsoft is also introducing a new ‘pay-as-you-go’ pricing model, giving customers the pricing scalability and flexibility that IoT business demands.
- Azure Maps S1 SKU: Azure Maps is a portfolio of mapping, navigation, and traffic services which uses simple and secure location APIs to add geospatial context to data, and geospatial intelligence to IoT devices. To give customers an enhanced service option, Microsoft is introducing a new S1 pricing tier for Azure Maps, to complement the Standard S0 offering. The S1 offering, available starting December 4, 2018, provides an enhanced service level for production scale deployments of applications requiring Azure Maps at higher than 50 queries per second for enterprise-scale deployments, solutions requiring advanced functionality, and mission-critical applications.
- Azure Maps partnerships: Azure Maps continues to strengthen its leadership in geolocation services by enhancing its tools for developers and building closer ties to mobility data and analytics providers. Microsoft is announcing a new partnership with global leader in public transit analytics, Moovit. Moovit will integrate its real-time public transit data directly into Azure Maps, helping developers build richer, more sophisticated apps for enterprises managing transportation and field services logistics, beginning in 2019. This partnership will provide developers an end-to-end destination for location information and smart city insights, helping urban transportation planners optimize the flow of people, while enabling better solutions for retailers, consumers, and more applications.
Accelerating development of IoT solutions
In June, we announced the general availability and open-source runtime for Azure IoT Edge, allowing customers to deploy cloud workloads like Azure Stream Analytics and Azure Machine Learning to run directly on your IoT devices. We are continuing to accelerate edge solution development by certifying and showcasing pre-built edge modules, available through Azure Marketplace. As a solution developer, you can showcase and monetize your edge IP today—get started here.
For a while now, Microsoft has offered Azure IoT solution accelerators to customers as a way to quickly develop and deploy fully customizable IoT solutions. At Connect, we’re announcing a set of additional enhancements to two of them, specifically:
- Azure IoT Device Simulation: Microsoft is enabling developers to create advanced device simulations to test their IoT solutions in development, simplifying the development of robust and scalable solutions. To learn more, see “Accelerating IoT solution development and testing with Azure IoT Device Simulation” on the Azure blog.
- Sample simulations get you up and running quickly
- Create quick custom devices, or use JavaScript to create advanced device models
- Re-run simulations with saved device models
- Simulate complex device populations with multiple device types
- View throughput metrics and integrated IoT Hub charts
- Azure IoT Remote Monitoring: Updates to this open source solution make it easier than ever to empower operators managing all facets of their IoT solutions.
- Deploy edge modules to IoT edge devices
- Trigger actions such as email notifications in response to device alerts
- Manage device updates using Automatic Device Management
- Visualize device data using Azure Time Series Insights
We’re excited about bringing yet another set of compelling capabilities to the IoT market. Check out these latest announcements to get started in your customer journey today!