Twilio’s new Microvisor platform and Microsoft’s new Guardian module illustrate one way the internet of things might be implemented.
With the caveat that it typically is easier for an application provider to add new features and create new platforms, compared to a connectivity provider, Twilio’s new Microvisor platform shows how an enabler of voice, text, chat, video and email services in any application is migrating towards support for internet of things.
The move illustrates how a communications enabler adapts its current business to developing new markets, much as connectivity providers hope to add support for internet of things and edge computing.
Microvisor is said by Twilio to be “an IoT connectivity and device management platform that offers embedded developers a one stop shop for building connected devices, keeping them secure, and managing them through their lifetime.”
As was the case with the original Twilio platform that basically would voice-enable any application, the Microvisor platform abstracts away many of the common infrastructure challenges burdening IoT developers, the company says.
That includes functions such as security, debugging and updates and language and embedded operating system support, including hardware such as the Cortex-M microprocessors and select STMicroelectronics chips.
Microsoft’s Azure Sphere guardian module provides a hardware element. A guardian module is add-on hardware that attaches to a port on a "brownfield" device that already is in use.
Starbucks uses guardian modules to track the types of beans used, water temperature, and water quality, for example.
Beyond predictive maintenance, Azure Sphere allows Starbucks to transmit new recipes directly to machines in 30,000 stores rather than manually uploading recipes via thumb drives,
A guardian module adds IoT capabilities to equipment that either doesn't support internet connectivity or doesn't support it securely.
A guardian module can cull data from the brownfield device, process it, and transmit it securely to a cloud endpoint or to multiple endpoints.
It also can provide environmental data for use with operating data from the brownfield device, or act as a a data storage device in case connectivity momentarily is lost.
A guardian module requires at least one high-level application. The high-level application communicates upstream with the internet (including the Azure Sphere Security Service and other cloud services) and downstream with the brownfield device.
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