Dutch embedded application specialist NXP Semiconductors has this month noted that its Android Things platform now supports the new Google Cloud IoT Core.
A cloud service from Google, Cloud IoT Core is described as a fully managed service technology to connect, manage and ingest data from millions of globally dispersed devices.
According to Google, “Cloud IoT Core, in combination with other services on Google Cloud IoT platform, provides a complete solution for collecting, processing, analyzing and visualizing IoT data in real time to support improved operational efficiency”
Alongside NXP, core partners for Google in this arena include Sierra Wireless, Microchip and Intel.
Developed in what is described as ‘early partnership’ with Google, the NXP Android Things platform features an i.MX applications processor. The platform was designed for RAD (Rapid Application Development) connected Android-based IoT device applications.
“Cloud IoT Core was designed to simplify digital transformation by helping customers use Google Cloud data analytics and machine learning capabilities and act on insights, in real time, from operational data that was previously inaccessible,” said Adam Massey, director of strategic technology partners at Google Cloud.
Read more: Google launches Cloud IoT Core, a managed IoT service
IoT data tool selection
The Google Cloud IoT Core includes services such as Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Bigtable, BigQuery and Data Studio to provide a zone for collecting, processing, analyzing and visualizing IoT data in real time. The goal here, as always, is to improve operational efficiency in IoT devices.
“Driving smart experiences at a large scale requires an ecosystem of advanced end node devices that seamlessly and securely connect with one another,” said Geoff Lees, senior vice president and general manager of the microcontroller business line at NXP. “Supporting the new Google Cloud IoT Core empowers developers to create devices with more reach, security, awareness and capability that is demanded by the IoT market.”
Other key features here include end-to-end security using certificate-based authentication. The platform also incorporates the use of ‘downstream’ analytic systems by integrating with Google Big Data Analytics and ML services.
Read more: NXP: How chips work in the IoT
Serverless infrastructure
There are (arguably) some goodies to get excited about here, assuming of course that embedded semiconductor analytics connectivity architecture causes the appropriate levels of psychic energy to flow to your chakras.
Serverless infrastructure is key for scalability and flexibility and this will (arguably) be discussed as a defining trend for IoT deployments in the coming months. Serverless computing does of course still feature servers, because that’s what cloud services run on, always.
The difference with serverless is that the cloud management layer (in this case provided by Google and integrated with NXP) is responsible for the software code execution model as it operates.
This means that software ‘functions’ (calls for data, drives to ‘write’ data to various places and so on) can be handled by the cloud provider. This means, in theory at least, that the software application developer can focus more directly on the task level of the IoT application in hand, rather than its relationship with the (cloud) server it relies upon for its existence.
NXP has also engineered role-level data control here, which is also a cause for pleasure. This means that we can apply tighter IAM (Information Access Management) roles to devices to control access to devices and data. We can also enjoy NXP’s provision of automatic device deployment to handle the registration, deployment and operation of devices.
Still not excited? Wait until you see the motherboard.
Read more: Rackspace: IoT without analytics & cloud is a non-starter