16. Internet of Things (IoT)

AWS IoT Core

AWS IoT Core is a managed cloud service that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. AWS IoT Core can support billions of devices and trillions of messages, and can process and route those messages to AWS endpoints and to other devices reliably and securely. With AWS IoT Core, your applications can keep track of and communicate with all your devices, all the time, even when they aren’t connected.

AWS IoT Core makes it easy to use AWS services like AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon QuickSight to build Internet of Things (IoT) applications that gather, process, analyze and act on data generated by connected devices, without having to manage any infrastructure.

FreeRTOS

FreeRTOS (a:FreeRTOS) is an operating system for microcontrollers that makes small, low-power edge devices easy to program, deploy, secure, connect, and manage. FreeRTOS extends the FreeRTOS kernel, a popular open source operating system for microcontrollers, with software libraries that make it easy to securely connect your small, low-power devices to AWS cloud services like AWS IoT Core or to more powerful edge devices running AWS IoT Greengrass.

A microcontroller (MCU) is a single chip containing a simple processor that can be found in many devices, including appliances, sensors, fitness trackers, industrial automation, and automobiles. Many of these small devices could benefit from connecting to the cloud or locally to other devices. For example, smart electricity meters need to connect to the cloud to report on usage, and building security systems need to communicate locally so that a door will unlock when you badge in. Microcontrollers have limited compute power and memory capacity and typically perform simple, functional tasks. Microcontrollers frequently run operating systems that do not have built-in functionality to connect to local networks or the cloud, making IoT applications a challenge. FreeRTOS helps solve this problem by providing both the core operating system (to run the edge device) as well as software libraries that make it easy to securely connect to the cloud (or other edge devices) so you can collect data from them for IoT applications and take action.

 

AWS IoT Greengrass

AWS IoT Greengrass seamlessly extends AWS to devices so they can act locally on the data they generate, while still using the cloud for management, analytics, and durable storage. With AWS IoT Greengrass, connected devices can run AWS Lambda functions, execute predictions based on machine learning models, keep device data in sync, and communicate with other devices securely – even when not connected to the Internet.

With AWS IoT Greengrass, you can use familiar languages and programming models to create and test your device software in the cloud, and then deploy it to your devices. AWS IoT Greengrass can be programmed to filter device data and only transmit necessary information back to the cloud. You can also connect to third-party applications, on-premises software, and AWS services out-of-the-box with AWS IoT Greengrass Connectors. Connectors also jumpstart device onboarding with pre-built protocol adapter integrations and allow you to streamline authentication via integration with AWS Secrets Manager.

AWS IoT 1-Click

AWS IoT 1-Click is a service that enables simple devices to trigger AWS Lambda functions that can execute an action. AWS IoT 1-Click supported devices enable you to easily perform actions such as notifying technical support, tracking assets, and replenishing goods or services. AWS IoT 1-Click supported devices are ready for use right out of the box and eliminate the need for writing your own firmware or configuring them for secure connectivity. AWS IoT 1-Click supported devices can be easily managed. You can easily create device groups and associate them with a Lambda function that executes your desired action when triggered. You can also track device health and activity with the pre-built reports.

 

 AWS IoT Analytics

AWS IoT Analytics is a fully-managed service that makes it easy to run and operationalize sophisticated analytics on massive volumes of IoT data without having to worry about the cost and complexity typically required to build an IoT analytics platform. It is the easiest way to run analytics on IoT data and get insights to make better and more accurate decisions for IoT applications and machine learning use cases.

IoT data is highly unstructured which makes it difficult to analyze with traditional analytics and business intelligence tools that are designed to process structured data. IoT data comes from devices that often record fairly noisy processes (such as temperature, motion, or sound). The data from these devices can frequently have significant gaps, corrupted messages, and false readings that must be cleaned up before analysis can occur. Also, IoT data is often only meaningful in the context of additional, third party data inputs. For example, to help farmers determine when to water their crops, vineyard irrigation systems often enrich moisture sensor data with rainfall data from the vineyard, allowing for more efficient water usage while maximizing harvest yield.

AWS IoT Analytics automates each of the difficult steps that are required to analyze data from IoT devices. AWS IoT Analytics filters, transforms, and enriches IoT data before storing it in a time-series data store for analysis. You can setup the service to collect only the data you need from your devices, apply mathematical transforms to process the data, and enrich the data with device-specific metadata such as device type and location before storing the processed data. Then, you can analyze your data by running ad hoc or scheduled queries using the built-in SQL query engine, or perform more complex analytics and machine learning inference. AWS IoT Analytics makes it easy to get started with machine learning by including pre-built models for common IoT use cases.

You can also use your own custom analysis, packaged in a container, to execute on AWS IoT Analytics. AWS IoT Analytics automates the execution of your custom analyses created in Jupyter Notebook or your own tools (such as Matlab, Octave, etc.) to be executed on your schedule.

AWS IoT Analytics is a fully managed service that operationalizes analyses and scales automatically to support up to petabytes of IoT data. With AWS IoT Analytics, you can analyze data from millions of devices and build fast, responsive IoT applications without managing hardware or infrastructure.

 

AWS IoT Button

The AWS IoT Button is a programmable button based on the Amazon Dash Button hardware. This simple Wi-Fi device is easy to configure, and it’s designed for developers to get started with AWS IoT Core, AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon SNS, and many other Amazon Web Services without writing device-specific code.

You can code the button's logic in the cloud to configure button clicks to count or track items, call or alert someone, start or stop something, order services, or even provide feedback. For example, you can click the button to unlock or start a car, open your garage door, call a cab, call your spouse or a customer service representative, track the use of common household chores, medications or products, or remotely control your home appliances.

The button can be used as a remote control for Netflix, a switch for your Philips Hue light bulb, a check-in/check-out device for Airbnb guests, or a way to order your favorite pizza for delivery. You can integrate it with third-party APIs like Twitter, Facebook, Twilio, Slack or even your own company's applications. Connect it to things we haven’t even thought of yet.

 

AWS IoT Device Defender

AWS IoT Device Defender is a fully managed service that helps you secure your fleet of IoT devices. AWS IoT Device Defender continuously audits your IoT configurations to make sure that they aren’t deviating from security best practices. A configuration is a set of technical controls you set to help keep information secure when devices are communicating with each other and the cloud. AWS IoT Device Defender makes it easy to maintain and enforce IoT configurations, such as ensuring device identity, authenticating and authorizing devices, and encrypting device data. AWS IoT Device Defender continuously audits the IoT configurations on your devices against a set of predefined security best practices. AWS IoT Device Defender sends an alert if there are any gaps in your IoT configuration that might create a security risk, such as identity certificates being shared across multiple devices or a device with a revoked identity certificate trying to connect to AWS IoT Core.

AWS IoT Device Defender also lets you continuously monitor security metrics from devices and AWS IoT Core for deviations from what you have defined as appropriate behavior for each device. If something doesn’t look right, AWS IoT Device Defender sends out an alert so you can take action to remediate the issue. For example, traffic spikes in outbound traffic might indicate that a device is participating in a DDoS attack. AWS IoT Greengrass and FreeRTOS automatically integrate with AWS IoT Device Defender to provide security metrics from the devices for evaluation.

AWS IoT Device Defender can send alerts to the AWS IoT Console, Amazon CloudWatch, and Amazon SNS. If you determine that you need to take an action based on an alert, you can use AWS IoT Device Management to take mitigating actions such as pushing security fixes.

 

AWS IoT Device Management

As many IoT deployments consist of hundreds of thousands to millions of devices, it is essential to track, monitor, and manage connected device fleets. You need to ensure your IoT devices work properly and securely after they have been deployed. You also need to secure access to your devices, monitor health, detect and remotely troubleshoot problems, and manage software and firmware updates.

AWS IoT Device Management makes it easy to securely onboard, organize, monitor, and remotely manage IoT devices at scale. With AWS IoT Device Management, you can register your connected devices individually or in bulk, and easily manage permissions so that devices remain secure. You can also organize your devices, monitor and troubleshoot device functionality, query the state of any IoT device in your fleet, and send firmware updates over-the-air (OTA). AWS IoT Device Management is agnostic to device type and OS, so you can manage devices from constrained microcontrollers to connected cars all with the same service. AWS IoT Device Management allows you to scale your fleets and reduce the cost and effort of managing large and diverse IoT device deployments.

 

AWS IoT Events

AWS IoT Events is a fully managed IoT service that makes it easy to detect and respond to events from IoT sensors and applications. Events are patterns of data identifying more complicated circumstances than expected, such as changes in equipment when a belt is stuck or connected motion detectors using movement signals to activate lights and security cameras. To detect events before AWS IoT Events, you had to build costly, custom applications to collect data, apply decision logic to detect an event, and then trigger another application to react to the event. Using AWS IoT Events, it’s simple to detect events across thousands of IoT sensors sending different telemetry data, such as temperature from a freezer, humidity from respiratory equipment, and belt speed on a motor, and hundreds of equipment management applications. You simply select the relevant data sources to ingest, define the logic for each event using simple ‘if-then-else’ statements, and select the alert or custom action to trigger when an event occurs. AWS IoT Events continuously monitors data from multiple IoT sensors and applications, and it integrates with other services, such as AWS IoT Core and AWS IoT Analytics, to enable early detection and unique insights into events. AWS IoT Events automatically triggers alerts and actions in response to events based on the logic you define. This helps resolve issues quickly, reduce maintenance costs, and increase operational efficiency.

 

AWS IoT SiteWise

AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that makes it easy to collect and organize data from industrial equipment at scale. You can easily monitor equipment across your industrial facilities to identify waste, such as breakdown of equipment and processes, production inefficiencies, and defects in products. Today, getting performance metrics from industrial equipment is tough because data is often locked into proprietary on-premises data stores and typically requires specialized expertise to retrieve it and put it in a format that is useful for searching and analysis. IoT SiteWise simplifies this process by providing software running on a gateway that resides in your facilities and automates the process of collecting and organizing industrial equipment data. This gateway securely connects to your on-premises data servers, collects data, and sends the data to the AWS Cloud. You can run the IoT SiteWise software on an AWS Snowball Edge gateway or install the IoT SiteWise software on popular third-party industrial gateways. These gateways are specifically designed for industrial environments that are likely already in your facilities connecting your industrial equipment.

You can use IoT SiteWise to monitor operations across facilities, quickly compute common industrial performance metrics, and build applications to analyze industrial equipment data, prevent costly equipment issues, and reduce production inefficiencies. With IoT SiteWise, you can focus on understanding and optimizing your operations, rather than building costly in-house data collection and management applications.

 

AWS IoT Things Graph

AWS IoT Things Graph is a service that makes it easy to visually connect different devices and web services to build IoT applications.

IoT applications are being built today using a variety of devices and web services to automate tasks for a wide range of use cases, such as smart homes, industrial automation, and energy management. Because there aren't any widely adopted standards, it's difficult today for developers to get devices from multiple manufacturers to connect to each other as well as with web services. This forces developers to write lots of code to wire together all of the devices and web services they need for their IoT application. AWS IoT Things Graph provides a visual drag-and-drop interface for connecting and coordinating devices and web services, so you can build IoT applications quickly. For example, in a commercial agriculture application, you can define interactions between humidity, temperature, and sprinkler sensors with weather data services in the cloud to automate watering. You represent devices and services using pre-built reusable components, called models, that hide low-level details, such as protocols and interfaces, and are easy to integrate to create sophisticated workflows.

You can get started with AWS IoT Things Graph using these pre-built models for popular device types, such as switches and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), or create your own custom model using a GraphQL-based schema modeling language, and deploy your IoT application to AWS IoT Greengrass-enabled devices such as cameras, cable set-top boxes, or robotic arms in just a few clicks. IoT Greengrass is software that provides local compute and secure cloud connectivity so devices can respond quickly to local events even without internet connectivity, and runs on a huge range of devices from a Raspberry Pi to a server-level appliance. IoT Things Graph applications run on IoT Greengrass-enabled devices.

 

AWS Partner Device Catalog

The AWS Partner Device Catalog helps you find devices and hardware to help you explore, build, and go to market with your IoT solutions. Search for and find hardware that works with AWS, including development kits and embedded systems to build new devices, as well as off-the-shelf-devices such as gateways, edge servers, sensors, and cameras for immediate IoT project integration. The choice of AWS enabled hardware from our curated catalog of devices from APN partners can help make the rollout of your IoT projects easier. All devices listed in the AWS Partner Device Catalog are also available for purchase from our partners to get you started quickly.