Understanding the Internet of Things and Azure IoT Suite
A few years ago, Internet of Things (IoT) was an emerging trend. Today, it is part of modern arsenal of IT solutions. In the consumer space, IoT is generally perceived as smartwatches, fridges, TVs, etc.—age-old things that are now connected to the Intern
- PDF / 745,787 Bytes
- 27 Pages / 504 x 720 pts Page_size
- 63 Downloads / 218 Views
Understanding the Internet of Things and Azure IoT Suite A few years ago, Internet of Things (IoT) was an emerging trend. Today, it is part of modern arsenal of IT solutions. In the consumer space, IoT is generally perceived as smartwatches, fridges, TVs, etc.—age-old things that are now connected to the Internet. It is seen more as a convenience feature than a solution to an existing problem (smart thermostats and remote pet food dispensers, anyone?). At the enterprise level, IoT has been a boon, especially in automation. Take for instance an automobile factory set up with hundreds of machines working hard-to- manufacture cars. Each machine may have lots of moving parts, which are susceptible to wear and tear. There are several parameters that must be regularly checked to ensure a 100% safe and operational working environment at all times. Such monitoring is largely a manual process at typical factories, done by humans. Data is recorded digitally or on paper and analyzed later to identify machines (or specific parts) that need repair or replacement. This is a slow and expensive process. Monitoring of manufacturing equipment can be automated by retrofitting cheap IoT devices into these machines. IoT devices can be customized to have specialized sensors to monitory specific parameters for different machines. In a world where Cloud storage and Big Data analysis is cheap, the IoT devices can run 24x7 to record and store monitoring data. This large feed of data can then be automatically analyzed later or in real time to detect potential problems. Factory supervisors can then be automatically intimated through text and notification messages.
© Nishith Pathak and Anurag Bhandari 2018 N. Pathak and A. Bhandari, IoT, AI, and Blockchain for .NET, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3709-0_2
25
Chapter 2
Understanding the Internet of Things and Azure IoT Suite
What was the dominion of electrical and electronics engineers until a few years ago is now part of solution offerings at every major IT firm, making IoT a vital skill to have for computer and software engineers. To put it a little differently, what was a hardware and embedded software affair earlier is now writing normal software programs for tiny computers (IoT devices). In this chapter, you learn about: •
The history of IoT
•
IoT devices, including enablers such as Raspberry Pi
•
Network connectivity, including messaging and protocols
•
Practical use cases
•
Configuring and deploying a single IoT device
•
Azure IoT Suite and its components
•
Azure IoT Hub architecture
•
Configuring and deploying multiple IoT devices at scale using the Azure IoT Hub
The History of IoT Like artificial intelligence, the central idea behind IoT is not new. The phrase “Internet of Things” was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999, but the origin of the concept goes way back to early 80s. In 1982, a re-engineered Coke bottle dispensing machine—at Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department—became the first appliance to be connected to the Internet (ARPA
Data Loading...
