Microsoft’s ambition to be the undisputed leader for cloud users took a step forward today with the release to general availability of the Azure IoT Hub, Microsoft’s communications platform for cloud connected devices.
For several years now Microsoft have been working on its IoT platform, allowing users to build solutions to connect services and devices to powerful analytics technology. Start-ups and entrepreneurs lacking technological infrastructure have been able to benefit from a host of cloud-based tools.
The Azure IoT Hub has now become an important part of the Azure IoT Suite, a comprehensive bundle of services used to both build and run applications that work with connected devices. This means that the release of the Hub is a statement of intent for Microsoft’s IoT strategy, as although it has been available for public preview since October, it was not then a part of the Azure IoT Suite launch.
Internet of Things and Big Data
On the topic of the release, Sam George, partner director for Azure IoT at Microsoft, said that the 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 Azure messaging hub is an integral part of Microsoft’s IoT plans for both start-up and enterprise customers, and will enable safe and reliable communication from device to cloud and cloud to device, through open protocols such as MQTT, HTTPS and AMQPS. As such the release of the Hub is yet another step for Microsoft in supporting large networks of low-powered connected devices.
Speaking with Internet of Business earlier today, Andy Norman, a programmer at Ribbonfish, a leading provider of support for enterprise applications, said that “this highlights Microsoft’s ambition to continue from their original aim of ’computer for every home’ to ‘computer for every thing’.
“For start-ups and enterprise, this means they can make use of Microsoft’s libraries for talking securely to their cloud-based services, which is difficult to achieve otherwise on low-power hardware that IoT devices tend to use.”