Edge computing has emerged as a transformative technology for the Internet of Things (IoT), fundamentally altering how data is processed and managed within IoT ecosystems. By enabling data processing closer to the source, edge computing significantly enhances IoT infrastructure, leading to improved efficiency, reduced latency, and enhanced security. This article delves into the intricacies of edge computing in the IoT domain, exploring its impact and the potential it holds for the future of IoT.

Introduction to Edge Computing in IoT

The Internet of Things, a network of interconnected devices capable of collecting and exchanging data, has seen exponential growth in recent years. IoT devices range from simple sensors to complex industrial machines. Traditionally, IoT devices would send all collected data to centralized cloud-based services for processing and analysis. However, this approach often leads to high latency and increased bandwidth usage, which can be detrimental in scenarios requiring real-time data processing. This is where edge computing comes into play.

Edge computing refers to data processing at or near the source of data generation, rather than relying solely on a central data-processing warehouse. This means that data can be processed by the device itself or by a local computer or server, which is located close to the IoT device.

Enhanced Efficiency and Reduced Latency

One of the primary advantages of edge computing in IoT is the significant reduction in latency. By processing data locally, the need to send all data to a central cloud for processing is eliminated, thereby reducing the time it takes for the data to be processed and the response to be sent back. This is particularly crucial in applications where real-time processing is essential, such as autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, and smart grids.

Moreover, edge computing reduces the bandwidth required for data transmission, which is particularly important given the growing number of IoT devices and the massive volume of data they generate. By processing data locally and only sending relevant or processed data to the cloud, edge computing alleviates the strain on network bandwidth.

Improved Security and Privacy

Another critical aspect of edge computing in IoT is the enhancement of security and privacy. By processing data locally, sensitive information does not have to travel over the network to a centralized cloud, reducing the exposure to potential security breaches during transmission. Local data processing also means that in the event of a network breach, not all data is compromised, as some of it remains on the local device or edge server.

Furthermore, edge computing allows for better compliance with data privacy regulations, as data can be processed and stored locally, adhering to the legal requirements of the region in which the IoT device is located.

Enabling Advanced IoT Applications

Edge computing unlocks the potential for more advanced IoT applications. For instance, in the field of healthcare, wearable devices can monitor patient health data in real-time, processing and analyzing data on the spot to provide immediate feedback or alert healthcare providers in case of an emergency. In industrial settings, edge computing allows for predictive maintenance of machinery, where sensors can process data on the machine’s performance and predict failures before they occur.

Challenges and Considerations

Despite its advantages, implementing edge computing in IoT comes with its own set of challenges. One of the primary concerns is the management and maintenance of edge computing nodes. Unlike centralized cloud servers, edge devices are distributed and may be located in remote or hard-to-reach areas, making management and maintenance more challenging.

Additionally, ensuring the security of edge computing devices is crucial, as these devices could become targets for cyber-attacks. Unlike centralized data centers, which typically have robust security measures in place, edge devices may not have the same level of security, making them vulnerable.

The Future of Edge Computing in IoT

Looking ahead, the future of edge computing in IoT appears promising. With advancements in technology, edge devices are becoming more powerful, capable of handling more complex data processing tasks. This evolution is expected to drive further adoption of edge computing in various sectors.

In conclusion, edge computing represents a paradigm shift in how data is processed within IoT infrastructures. By enabling data processing closer to the source, it addresses the challenges of latency, bandwidth usage, and security. Although there are challenges in implementing edge computing, its benefits are significant, paving the way for more efficient, secure, and advanced IoT applications. As technology continues to evolve, edge computing is set to play an increasingly pivotal role in the IoT landscape, driving innovation and enabling new possibilities.

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Sierra Wireless Octave, the all-in-one edge-to-cloud solution for Industrial IoT, allows companies to focus on their data, not on complex IoT infrastructure.

Sierra Wireless today announced general availability of the Octave all-in-one edge-to-cloud solution for connecting industrial assets to the cloud.

With integrated edge devices, network and interfaces to all major cloud service providers, Octave accelerates, simplifies and de-risks IoT initiatives.

By building edge-to-cloud connectivity into products, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and enterprises can collect data about how equipment is being used, allowing them to maximize performance and uptime, reduce maintenance costs and offer transformational equipment-as-a-service and consumption-based services. The benefits for industrial companies are clear, however, the complexities of implementing and scaling IoT solutions can make it too expensive and risky for many to attempt. Octave simplifies this complex integration, allowing companies to get applications up and running within days instead of months, giving them access to use their equipment data to unlock valuable insights and opportunities.

Kent Thexton, President & CEO, Sierra Wireless, said:

“It is difficult, complex and time consuming to integrate wireless edge technology. Octave is built on 25 years of Sierra Wireless IoT experience to deliver a whole new way for OEMs and industrial companies to access machine data in the cloud. Octave eliminates the complex hardware integration, certification and security concerns and allows businesses to seamlessly access their operational data in the cloud and integrate it with their IT systems.”

Secure, all-in-one edge-to-cloud solution for the Industrial IoT

Sierra Wireless Octave integrates edge devices, network, and interfaces to all major cloud service providers into an all-in-one solution that securely extracts, orchestrates and acts on data from remote assets at the edge to the cloud. Customers can focus on building their business rather than reinventing technical infrastructure, which dramatically reduces costs and development time from several months to days for OEMs, system integrators and enterprises.

A new report from Forrester Research reveals companies can get to market up to 12 months sooner and reduce project costs by 42 percent using the Octave all-in-one edge-to-cloud solution, versus sourcing discrete solutions.

Jan ten Sythoff, Senior TEI Consultant, Forrester Research, said:
“It is no longer a question of whether to attempt digital transformation for industrial companies, but rather how to do so successfully. Sierra Wireless’ Octave has created a new category of IoT solutions, with cloud-based features and configuration that make it much simpler for an organization’s development engineers. Our research shows that using Octave reduces time to revenue, as well as development, management and maintenance costs.”

Powerful technology and partnerships unite machine data with existing IT systems

Octave will help industrial companies accelerate IoT development, de-risk their IoT deployments and free them to focus on their IoT data, rather than the infrastructure. With interfaces to all major cloud service providers, Octave turns the Industrial IoT into a cloud API that companies can merge with their existing IT systems.

Tony Shakib, General Manager, Azure IoT Business Acceleration, Microsoft Corp., said:
“In June 2019, Sierra Wireless announced the successful integration between Octave and Microsoft Azure IoT Central. With Octave available and connected with Microsoft’s Azure IoT Central offering, cloud developers can now deploy secure, intelligent and reliable IoT device connectivity and collect data as an extension of their Azure IoT Central experience.”

Early adopters of Octave have been able to innovate faster

Axibio, a Paris-based biowaste management company, developed its proprietary smart biowaste collector based on Octave. It is using data collected from its system to revolutionize how waste is managed, moving to an “Earn as You Throw” model, where people can be rewarded for ecologically conscious behavior that meets regulatory targets.

Pierre-André Galy, Co-Founder and Axibio Chairman, said:
“With Sierra Wireless Octave, we didn’t need to dedicate resources to developing the IoT infrastructure. Instead we could focus on building our web application and let Octave handle the rest. With the link from hardware to the cloud securely established, our product now has a near-infinite number of potential applications for a minimum development effort.”

David Mansfeld, Managing Partner at BM COM, a system integrator and developer of IoT and augmented reality applications, said:
“With Octave, everything was easy to set up. The very first time we plugged in the edge device and used Octave to connect it to our solution, it worked. The entire process took less than a day. Being able to immediately get the data we want from an edge device, when we want it, will significantly speed up the testing of IoT application POCs for us. Perhaps just as importantly, we think Octave will not only make building and testing IoT applications easier for us, but it will simplify application management and updates for our customers over these applications’ lifetimes.”

Based on 25 years of IoT leadership

Octave is powered by Sierra Wireless Ready-to-Connect devices, which come pre-certified and connected to Sierra Wireless’ IoT network with coverage in more than 130 countries. It standardizes data processing at the edge and the cloud, allowing developers to process, analyze and act on data using a common JavaScript framework, aligning OT and IT systems. Businesses can access information from the edge and securely transfer it to their existing cloud infrastructure using available APIs for all major cloud platforms. Octave offers a transparent, flexible and predictable pricing model that allows customers to pay based on the number of messages and data points they want transmitted to the cloud, rather than difficult to predict megabytes per month.

Innovation Summit 2019

Sierra Wireless will demonstrate Octave at the seventh annual Sierra Wireless Innovation Summit, October 23-24, 2019, at the Paris Novotel Tour Eiffel. Hear from customers, analysts, developers and business leaders who are developing Industrial IoT solutions based on Octave that create new revenue streams and business models.

Availability

Sierra Wireless Octave is generally available.

The post Sierra Wireless Octave Now Available, Unlocking Data from Millions of Industrial Assets appeared first on IoT Business News.

New Service Enables Best Practice for Edge Computing: Localize Compute, Data and Applications for Real-Time Value.

Nutanix, Inc., a leader in enterprise cloud computing, today announced the general availability of Xi IoT, a new edge computing service offered as part of the company’s Xi Cloud Services.

Combining the simplified elegance of core Nutanix solutions with a streamlined approach, Xi IoT eliminates complexity, accelerates the speed of deployment and elevates developers to focus on the business logic powering IoT applications and services.

In 2017, 3 billion enterprise IoT edge devices generated up to 30 times more data (256 ZB) than the 30+ million nodes across public and private cloud data centers. But the current IoT model in which the massive amounts of data on edge devices is sent back to a centralized cloud for processing has severely limited the ability of customers to make real-time, actionable decisions from intelligence gained at the edge. For customers, deriving value from this massive amount of data is rife with latency issues, lack of scalability, lack of autonomy, and compliance and privacy issues.

Unlike traditional IoT models, the Xi IoT platform delivers local compute, machine inference, and data services to perform real-time processing at the edge. Xi IoT Data Pipelines can securely move intelligently analyzed data to a customer’s public (Azure, AWS or GCP) or private cloud platform of choice for long-term analysis. Edge and core cloud deployments all operate on the same data and management plane, so Xi IoT customers have seamless, simplified insight into their deployment.

Because Xi IoT provides zero-touch setup and management of edge devices, organizations can eliminate the risk of IoT security breaches due to human error, increase overall efficiency and reduce the cost of operating edge devices across the globe.

Through Xi IoT, customers can manage all their edge locations through a sophisticated infrastructure and application lifecycle management tool, regardless of platform. Developers can leverage a rich set of popular open APIs to deploy next-generation data science applications as containerized applications or as functions, which are small snippets of code. This can be integrated into existing CI/CD pipelines, allowing them to make changes quickly from a single location.

By leveraging this well-known framework, Xi IoT helps IT organizations reduce training, development and testing costs while eliminating the possibility an organization is locked in to one public cloud provider. And because data is processed in real-time at the edge, companies are no longer inhibited by the transmission of data back to a core datacenter for processing, so decisions can be made based on data autonomously and in real-time.

Ashish Nadkarni, Group Vice President, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies, IDC, said:

“It is critical for enterprise organizations to have an edge strategy to unify, edge to cloud connectivity, to rapidly build IoT applications, and to provide real-time analytics closer to where the data is generated.”

“For companies looking for a competitive advantage, solutions like Nutanix Xi IoT can help them stay ahead of the market and identify new opportunities to grow their businesses.”

Nutanix Xi IoT will focus on the manufacturing, retail, oil and gas, healthcare, and smart cities markets at launch.

The post Nutanix Xi IoT Brings Intelligence to the Edge appeared first on IoT Business News.

NXP Semiconductors today announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing and business unit of Alibaba Group.

The two companies are working together to enable development of secure smart devices for edge computing applications and have plans to further develop solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT).

As part of the partnership, AliOS Things, the Alibaba IoT operating system has been integrated onto NXP applications processors, microcontroller chips, and Layerscape multicore processors. Both NXP’s i.MX and Layerscape processors are currently the only embedded systems on the market using the Alibaba Cloud TEE OS platform. The new solution benefits various markets including automotive, smart retail and smart home. And it is currently being applied in applications such as automotive entertainment and infotainment systems, QR code payment scanning applications and smart home speakers.

Li Zheng, NXP global senior vice president and President of Greater China, said:

“As the leader of IoT innovation in China, Alibaba Cloud has launched a range of IoT basic and content services to support the demands of cloud computing, big data, AI [artificial intelligence], cloud integration and security. Alibaba Cloud IoT kit has launched more than 200 categories, with a total of more than 10 million sets of sales.”

“Our partnership with Alibaba Cloud will promote the continuous and steady expansion of NXP’s technological advantages for edge computing and IoT security, and will support the long-term and secure development of China’s IoT ecosystem.”

“We share the same vision as NXP on providing advanced and secure IoT solutions for an ‘everything connected’ world,” said Ku Wei, General Manager of IoT of Alibaba Cloud. “Based on the integration of AliOS Things with NXP’s applications processors and microcontroller chips, our comprehensive solution will better serve the development of China’s local commercial and manufacturing industries.”

With the deep partnership between NXP and Alibaba Cloud Link in the field of IoT security, NXP has become a council member of the ICA IoT Connectivity Alliance. In the future. The two companies plan to jointly develop solutions to support application development in different fields including smart manufacturing and smart city.

The ‘Annual Report of China IoT Development 2015-2016’ predicts that the amount of equipment connected to IoT globally will reach 20-50 billion by 2020, with 80 percent of that equipment in China. NXP’s robust product portfolio covers offering from the edge node to gateway and comprehensive cloud IoT solutions. NXP’s products are widely used in smart homes, smart cities, smart transportation, and secure connectivity.

In China, NXP combines outstanding enterprises in upstream and downstream industries, working together with industry leaders for the safe, connected, sustainable development and motivation for innovation of IoT.

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The convergence of smart connected devices and cloud computing is unleashing an age of anytime, anywhere connectivity that is fostering entirely new modes of customer interaction and service delivery.

However, to realize the full potential of the Internet of Things opportunity, customers will need new tools and technologies. The existing tools that support the development of smart systems are not providing the full measure of value. We are quickly approaching analogous circumstances with the proliferation of smart connected devices. Each new device requires too much customization and maintenance just to perform basic tasks. We must develop software and methods to automate development, facilitate re-use, and easily connect and integrate device data or risk constraining the growth of the IoT market.

Pacific Control’s Edge Device Communication Protocol (EDCP) is based on decades of machine-based software development, integration knowledge and deployment experience. EDCP is a software framework for creating smart gateway devices and ubiquitous IoT solutions, it enables secure machine to machine communication, filters and aggregates sensor and device data locally as well as integrates data with web services and higher level systems. Its primary features include security, data acquisition and logging, data normalization, data analysis, data transmission, control, security, web services, remote management and deployment of artificial intelligence. EDCP runs on a variety of hardware platforms and is flexible, scalable, and lightweight and is an IT framework for adding intelligent networked devices to create IoT solutions.

Dilip Rahulan, Executive Chairman, Pacific Controls said:
“Pacific Controls is delivering innovative solutions in IoT to OEM’s and Smart City developers around the world, the release of our new communication protocol for IoT edge devices is a game changer for global IoT enablement, we are offering EDCP to the global IoT fraternity. This will radically transform the IoT business by enabling mass deployment of IoT services.”

Mr. Rahulan also added:

“Our Edge Device Communication Protocol (EDCP) revolutionizes the way devices will be connected to the enterprise in real time, globally enabling the IoT integration to business processes, delivering real time business intelligence as a service to multiple stake holders.”

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