AWS Launches IoT Services to Industrial Users and Developers

Amazon Web Services (AWS), this week announced multiple Internet of Things services aimed at developers as well as industrial customers who manage large fleets of connected devices.
AWS IoT SiteWise, and AWS IoT Events are designed for industrial users who need assistance in analyzing the massive amounts of data that their equipment collects every day. These managed services were announced at the 2018 AWS reInvent conference in Las Vegas.
According to AWS, IoT SiteWise “collects and structures data from the plant floor, labels and generates real-time key performance indicators (KPIs), and metrics.” IoT SiteWise allows users to manage data from multiple sites in one central environment. Customers can then use the data to perform large-scale analyses of equipment health or monitor production and performance trends at specific facilities.
IoT Events is a service that automates customer responses to specific IoT device readings.
AWS stated that events are data patterns that detect changes in equipment such as a conveyor belt getting stuck or a motion sensor sensing movement after hours. Customers can easily detect such events at large scale using IoT Events by analysing data from thousands of IoT sensors as well as hundreds of equipment management apps in real-time.
AWS IoT Things graph and AWS IoT Greengrass Connectors are two other IoT services that were announced at reInvent this week. They help developers build and enhance IoT applications.
IoT Things Graph is available in preview and provides developers with an intuitive visual environment for building apps. IoT Things graph does not require developers to write code to integrate services with IoT device. Instead, they can use a drag-and drop interface. Developers can link services to devices using visual representations or models.
The new IoT Greengrass Connectors capability, which is generally available, expands on the existing AWS Greengrass solution and adds support for third-party service “such as ServiceNow Splunk and Twilio,” AWS stated. IoT developers who have applications running on Greengrass-enabled devices will now be able to allow those devices access services from other partners.
“Customers tells us that they want to spend less time doing the undifferentiated heavy lifting to get different devices and services working together and more time innovating full-featured IoT apps,” Dirk Didascalou (head of AWS IoT) said in a prepared statement to announce the launches. “We offer customers tools that reduce the cost and complexity of building applications at edge with rich data sources to help drive better business decisions.