Whitepaper: Selecting the right secure hardware for your IoT deployment
In our relentless commitment to securing IoT deployments worldwide, we continue to raise awareness to the true nature of security—that it is a journey and never an endpoint. Challenges emerge, vulnerabilities evolve, and solutions age thereby triggering the need for renewal if you are to maintain a desired level of security. Securing your deployment as desired comprises planning, architecture, and execution main phases. For IoT, these are further broken down into sub-phases to include design assessment, risk assessment, model assessment, development, and deployment as shown in Figure 1. The decision process at each phase is equally important, the process must take all other phases into consideration for optimal efficacy. This is especially true when choosing the right secure hardware, also known as secure silicon or Hardware Secure Module(HSM), to secure an IoT deployment. Read about it in the Azure blog.Microsoft IoT Central delivers low-code way to build IoT solutions fast
Following a successful limited preview, we are announcing the public preview of Microsoft IoT Central. Microsoft IoT Central is the first true highly scalable IoT SaaS solution that has built-in support for IoT best practices and world-class security along with the reliability, regional availability, and the global scale of the Azure cloud. Microsoft IoT Central allows companies throughout the world to build production-grade IoT applications in hours and not worry about managing all the necessary backend infrastructure or hiring new skill sets to develop the solutions. In short, Microsoft IoT Central makes it so that everyone can benefit from IoT. Read about it in the Azure blog.Announcing Azure Location Based Services public preview
Today we announced the Public Preview availability of Azure Location Based Services (LBS). LBS is a portfolio of geospatial service APIs natively integrated into Azure that enable developers, enterprises and ISVs to create location aware apps and IoT, mobility, logistics and asset tracking solutions. The portfolio currently comprises of services for Map Rendering, Routing, Search, Time Zones and Traffic. In partnership with TomTom and in support of our enterprise customers, Microsoft has added native location capabilities to the Azure public cloud. Azure LBS has a robust set of geospatial services atop a global geographic data set. These services are comprised of 5 primary REST services and a JavaScript Map Control. Each service has a unique set of capabilities atop of the base map data and are built in unison and in accordance with Azure standards making it easy to work interoperable between the services. Additionally, Azure LBS is fully hosted and integrated into the Azure cloud meaning the services are compliant with all Azure fundamentals for privacy, usability, global readiness, accessibility and localization. Users can manage all Azure LBS account information from within the Azure portal and billed like any other Azure service. Read about it in the Azure blog.Microsoft showcases latest industrial IoT innovations at SPS 2017
We are excited to extend our lead in standards-based Industrie 4.0 cloud solutions using the industrial interoperability standard OPC UA, with several new product announcements at SPS IPC Drives 2017 in Nuernberg, Europe’s leading industrial automation exhibition, which takes place next week. We continue to be the only cloud provider that offers both OPC UA client/server as well as the upcoming (in OPC UA version 1.04) Publish/Subscribe communication pattern to the cloud and back with open-source modules for easy connection to existing machines, without requiring changes to these machines and without requiring opening the on-premises firewall. We achieve this through the two Azure IoT Edge modules OPC Proxy and OPC Publisher, which are available open-source on GitHub and as Docker containers on DockerHub. Read about it in the Azure blog.Azure Stream Analytics now available on IoT Edge
Today, we are announcing the public preview of Azure Stream Analytics running on Azure IoT Edge. Azure Stream Analytics on IoT Edge empowers developers to deploy near-real-time analytical intelligence closer to IoT devices so that they can unlock the full value of device-generated data. Designed for customers requiring low latency, resiliency, efficient use of bandwidth and compliance, enterprises can now deploy control logic close to the industrial operations and complement Big Data analytics done in the cloud. Read about it in the Azure blog.Azure IoT Edge open for developers to build for the intelligent edge
As businesses learn to harness the transformational power of IoT, IoT devices are becoming a mission-critical business asset. Today, IoT solutions use IoT devices to sense things in the real world with processing and decision making happening in the cloud, but as IoT continues to mature there are many use cases where it’s more appropriate to process data or take action directly on the IoT device itself. Earlier this year at our //Build developer conference, we introduced a revolutionary new product, Azure IoT Edge, to address these needs. Azure IoT Edge enables businesses to run cloud intelligence directly on IoT devices even smaller than a Raspberry Pi or as powerful as they need. Read about it in the Azure blog.Getting started with the new Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution
Last month, we announced the work we have been doing to create the next generation of Azure IoT Suite preconfigured solutions. It is our pleasure to announce that you can now deploy the updated version of the Remote Monitoring solution from AzureIoTSuite.com and your development CLI. This is a major update with a lot of newly enabled scenarios and features, so we wanted to provide more guidance on how to get started. Explore the solution code and learn more on the blog.Benefits of using the Azure IoT SDKs, and pitfalls to avoid if you don’t
Azure IoT provides a set of open-source Software Development Kits (SDKs) to simplify and accelerate the development of IoT solutions build with Azure IoT Hub. Using the SDKs in prototyping and production enables you to: Develop a “future-proof” solution with minimal code: While you can use protocol libraries to communicate with Azure IoT Hub, you may come back to this decision later and regret it. You will miss out on a lot of upcoming advanced features of IoT Hub and spend time redeveloping code and functionality that you could get for free. The SDKs support new features from IoT Hub, so you can incorporate them with minimal code and ensure your solution is up-to-date. Leverage features designed for a complete software solution and focus on your specific need: The SDKs contain many libraries that address key problems and needs of IoT solutions such as security, device management, reliability, etc. You can speed up time to market by leveraging these libraries directly and focus on developing for your specific IoT scenario. Develop with your preferred language for different platform: You can develop with C, C#, Java, Node.js, or Python without worrying about protocol specific intricacy. The SDKs provide out-of-box support for a range of platforms and the C SDK can be ported to new platforms. Benefit from the flexibility of open source with support from Microsoft and community: The SDKs are available open source on GitHub and we work in the open. You can modify, adapt, and contribute to the code that will run your devices and your applications. Learn more about it in the Azure blog.Securing the Intelligent Edge
The Intelligent Edge brings the power of the cloud to mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices and demands security for trust. Azure IoT Edge is an implementation of the Intelligent Edge. Cloud-enabled computing at the edge means concentrating data, and therefore inherent value even if only momentarily. It also means moving tremendous value from the cloud to the edge in the form of intellectual property, algorithms, curated parameters, and value operations like policy enforcements, metering, and monetization. The Intelligent Edge is without a doubt a high-value bullseye to nefarious hacking and demands a high bar for security. Securing it requires a community effort and Microsoft, in alliance with many companies, is making great strides in this direction. Why should an Intelligent Edge device demand the same rigor with which we secure the Microsoft Cloud? The Intelligent Edge device is physically accessible to potentially malicious actors, and therefore exposed to greater threats. These range from physical tampering to exploits from repurposing tools and knowledge from other disciplines. Read about it in the Azure blog.
