The scale of IoT has today got another boost as Microsoft makes its Azure IoT Hub available worldwide.
The IoT Hub, part of Microsoft’s cloud services, allows users to connect, provision and manage billions of IoT devices sending and receiving trillions of messages per month.
In a blog post, Sam George, Microsoft’s partner director for Azure IoT, said that the IoT Hub is the bridge between customers’ devices and their solutions in the cloud, "allowing them to store, analyse and act on that data in real time".
The system uses two-way communication, from device to cloud and cloud to device, over open protocols such as MQTT, HTTPS and AMQPS widely used in IoT.
George said: "IoT Hub [also] makes it simple to integrate with other Azure services, such as Azure Machine Learning to find deep insights that power IoT businesses, and Azure Stream Analytics to act on those insights in real time by simultaneously monitoring millions of devices and taking action."
Microsoft has, over the last 12 months, unveiled several IoT products, including the Azure IoT Suite last September.
The Suite enables customers to provision a working, end-to-end IoT solution that includes IoT Hub as well as other Azure Services, and "even includes simulated devices so customers can see the solution working right away," according to George.
In that same month, the company also announced the Microsoft Azure Certified for IoT which consists of an ecosystem of partners including Arduino, BeagleBoard, Freescale, Intel, Raspberry Pi, Resin.io, Seeed Technology, Samsung and Texas Instruments.
With the general availability of the IoT Hub, Microsoft also unveiled that Advantech, Dell, HPE, and Libelium have also joined the Azure Certified for IoT scheme.
George said: "IoT is poised for dramatic growth in 2016 and we can’t wait to see what our customers and partners will continue to build on our offerings. We are just getting started and will have much more to share in the coming months."
