In a significant step forward in extending Cumulocity IoT’s capabilities, we’re delighted to announce that we now include extensive support for thin edge devices. Our ground-breaking thin edge IoT framework is available as a fully supported commercial offering as well as an open-source project, once again demonstrating that Software AG is leading the way in delivering open IoT solutions that deliver real value, fast.
To illustrate why thin edge is becoming increasingly important, taking elevators as an example: with hundreds of thousands of elevators in use, being stuck in one is something we all want to avoid. One customer already uses thin edge computing as a cost-effective way of collecting and sending back information about the status of their elevators to determine whether it needs a service or has developed a fault. The ability to diagnose elevator maintenance needs along with the scalability required to manage large numbers of these thin edge devices is a key requirement.
While deploying IoT solutions on edge devices (that is devices with compute abilities that sit close to the sensors and actuators they control) is not new, deploying these solutions as modular, out of the box components on these hardened, lower power devices with a small physical footprint has presented challenges to many organizations.
The reason for this has largely been that, until now, there has been no standard software platform for doing so. Nevertheless, as IoT applications continue to evolve to cover remote locations, running IoT applications on embedded devices, PLC gateways, routers etc, thin edge has become a hot topic.
As a result, organizations have been faced with the unenviable choice between building, testing and deploying their own IoT services on thin edge devices, along with the challenge of making this talk to their existing back-end architecture or to roll their own by picking a bundle of proprietary IoT components and trying to make them work together.
Seeing this gap, Software AG teamed up with other industry leaders such as IFM, Kunbus and Nexus group to create the open source thin-edge.io framework. Taking the strengths of the award-winning Cumulocity IoT platform including device connectivity and management, and analytics, we’ve opened up these technologies to the wider IoT market, running on a multitude of thin edge hardware, while making it compatible with a variety of different cloud based IoT platforms.
This means there is now a standardized, extensible, open platform for building new, flexible IoT applications on thin edge devices, drawing on proving technology. With Thin Edge, you will be able to:
- Connect your devices in seconds, securely and without vendor-lock-in
- Remove the complexity of keeping your firmware, software and applications updated in the field, while providing unrivalled security and reliability when it comes to securely connecting and maintaining devices that operate in remote operational environments
- Eliminate the limitations associated with rolling out updates across all devices or with capturing consistent data for preventative maintenance – breaking down the barriers of hardware and software fragmentation
- Achieve a faster time to value by using the fastest, most flexible, most open, industrial cloud app technology available
- Remain competitive, innovative, and drive incremental revenue – be smarter and faster in a world that constantly demands faster and better results
For more information on the open commercial Cumulocity IoT Thin Edge offering, please visit IoT Edge Computing | IoT Edge Platform | Software AG and, for more information on the open-source project, please visit https://thin-edge.io.
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