In today’s technology market, most of the workload is now completed with less pressure, all thanks to the latest cloud services and inventions. As a result, organizations can now focus more on getting good outcomes and growth in all areas. Likewise, one name that has given a big contribution to taken up the cloud sector to another level is the Internet of things (IoT). This service comes in various forms and the trending one is AWS IoT Core.
AWS IoT core provides a simple, easy and secure way for connecting devices to the cloud. This can scale up to billions of devices and trillions of messages. However, this is not even 1% of what this service can provide. Wondering what’s next? Then, keep up with the blog to learn more about Amazon IoT core and its features.
What is AWS IoT Core?
AWS IoT Core is used for connecting IoT devices to the AWS cloud without any requirement of provisioning or managing servers. This service has the support of billions of devices and trillions of messages. Moreover, it can process and route messages to AWS endpoints and other devices in a reliable and secure way. Using AWS IoT Core, you will be able to keep track of your applications. And, you can communicate with all your devices even when they aren’t connected.
Further, AWS IoT Core makes it easy to use AWS and Amazon services for building IoT applications that collect, process, analyze and act on data generated by connected devices. The services include AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, AWS CloudTrail, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudWatch, and Alexa Voice Service.
But, what makes AWS IoT core worth it! Let’s find out by understanding the benefits before moving on to its features.
AWS IoT Core: Benefits
- Firstly, AWS IoT Core can give access for connecting any number of devices to the cloud and to other devices without any requirement for provisioning or managing servers.
- Secondly, it allows you to choose the most appropriate communication protocol for the use cases to connect and manage IoT devices. Moreover, it supports MQTT, HTTPS, and LoRaWAN.
- Thirdly, it provides automated configuration and authentication upon a device’s first connection to AWS IoT Core. Moreover, it offers end-to-end encryption throughout all points of connection. So that no data can be exchanged between devices and AWS IoT Core without a proven identity. In addition, you can secure access for your devices and applications by applying policies with granular permissions.
- Lastly, AWS IoT Core provides options for filtering, transforming, and acting upon device data on the fly depending on the business rules you define. Moreover, you can update rules for implementing new device and application features at any time. And, it provides a way to use AWS services like AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, and Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
Coming on to the important section of this blog that is explaining the AWS IoT core features. So, let’s check out the areas making this service advance.
What are the features of AWS IoT Core?
AWS IoT Core gives access to connecting devices to AWS Services and other devices. It helps in securing data and interactions, processing and acting upon device data. Moreover, it allows applications for interacting with devices even when they are offline and producing low-cost Alexa built-in devices. With adding more to it, let’s check out the major key features of the AWS IoT core.
Key features:
1. AWS IoT Device SDK
- Firstly, the AWS IoT Device SDK helps in connecting your hardware device or mobile application to AWS IoT Core.
- Secondly, it allows devices for connecting, authenticating, and exchanging messages with AWS IoT Core using the MQTT, HTTP, or WebSockets protocols.
- Thirdly, the AWS IoT Device SDK supports C, JavaScript, and Arduino. Moreover, it also includes the client libraries, the developer guide, and the porting guide for manufacturers.
2. Device Advisor
- Firstly, device Advisor refers to a fully managed cloud-based test capability for validating IoT devices during development.
- Secondly, it provides pre-built tests in helping developers for validating their IoT devices for reliable and secure connectivity with AWS IoT Core.
- Thirdly, the developers can test if their IoT devices can reliably interoperate with AWS IoT Core. And, they can follow security best practices.
- Next, developers can use this for identifying and resolving the most common device software issues during development. This is before they deploy their devices in production.
- Lastly, the device Advisor offers a signed qualification report which can be used by hardware partners for qualifying their devices for inclusion in the AWS Partner Device Catalog.
3. Device Gateway
- Firstly, the Device Gateway act as the entry point for IoT devices connecting to AWS.
- Secondly, it handles all active device connections and implements semantics for multiple protocols. This ensures that devices are able to securely and efficiently communicate with AWS IoT Core.
- Thirdly, it supports the MQTT, WebSockets, and HTTP 1.1 protocols. Moreover, for devices connecting using MQTT or WebSockets, the Device Gateway keeps long-lived, bidirectional connections for helping devices to send and receive messages at any time with low latency. Next, it scales automatically for supporting over a billion devices without any requirement for managing any infrastructure.
- Lastly, for customers migrating to AWS IoT, it offers capabilities for transitioning infrastructures with minimal impact to existing architectures and IoT devices.
4. Message Broker
- Firstly, the Message Broker is a high throughput pub/sub message broker for securely transmitting messages to and from all of your IoT devices and applications with low latency.
- Secondly, it allows you to send messages to, or receive messages from, as many devices as you would like.
- Thirdly, it supports messaging patterns ranging from one-to-one command and control messaging. And, to one-to-one million broadcast notification systems and everything in between.
- Next, in this, you can set up fine-grained access controls for,
- Firstly, managing the permissions of individual connections at the topic level
- Secondly, ensuring that your devices and applications will only send and receive the data that you want them to.
- Lastly, the Message Broker is a fully managed service that helps to automatically scales your message volume without requiring you to run any infrastructure.
5. Authentication and Authorization
- Firstly, AWS IoT Core provides mutual authentication and encryption at all points of connection. This is to say, without any proven identity, no data can be exchanged between devices and AWS IoT Core.
- Secondly, AWS IoT Core supports the AWS method of authentication,
- Firstly, X.509 certificate-based authentication
- Secondly, customer-created token-based authentication
- Next, you can map policies to each certificate for authorizing devices or applications for having access, or change your mind and revoke access altogether without touching the device.
- Then, you can create, deploy and manage certificates and policies for the devices from the console or using the API. However, for revoking access to an individual device, those device certificates can be provisioned, activated, and associated with the relevant IoT policies that are configured using AWS IoT Core.
- Lastly, it offers fleet provisioning that makes it easy for onboarding any number of manufactured devices to the cloud at scale. Moreover, it provides an end-to-end managed device onboarding experience that sets up devices with unique digital identities and performs the device-side and cloud-side configuration necessary in each device for connecting and operating with AWS IoT automatically upon its first connection to AWS IoT Core.
6. Registry
- Firstly, the registry is for establishing an identity for devices and tracking metadata like the devices’ attributes and capabilities.
- Secondly, it assigns a unique identity to each device that is consistently formatted regardless of the type of device or how it connects.
- Thirdly, it supports metadata that explains the capabilities of a device, for example, whether a sensor reports temperature.
- Lastly, it allows you to store metadata about your devices at no additional charge. Moreover, the metadata in the Registry does not expire as long as you access or update your registry entry at least once every 7 years.
7. Device Shadow
- Firstly, using AWS IoT Core, you can create a persistent, Device Shadow, of each device that includes the device’s latest state so that applications or other devices can read messages and interact with the device.
- However, the Device Shadow continues the last reported state and desired future state of each device even when the device is offline.
- Secondly, the Device Shadow helps in building applications that interact with your devices by providing always available REST APIs. In addition, applications can set the desired future state of a device without accounting for the device’s current state.
- Thirdly, the AWS IoT Device SDK helps the device in synchronizing its state with its Device Shadow, and to respond to desired future states set via the Device Shadow.
- Lastly, the Device Shadow allows you for storing the state of your devices for up to a year for free. The Device Shadow continues forever if you update them at least once per year else, they get expired.
8. Rules Engine
- Firstly, the Rules Engine helps in building IoT applications that collect, process, analyze and act on data generated by connected devices at a global scale without any requirement for managing infrastructure.
- Secondly, the Rules Engine assesses inbound messages published into AWS IoT Core. Then, it performs transforming in order for delivering them to another device or a cloud service, based on the defined business rules.
- Thirdly, the Rules Engine can perform message routing to AWS endpoints including AWS IoT Analytics, AWS IoT Events, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), and AWS Step Functions.
- Next, you can author rules within the management console or write rules using SQL-like syntax. However, rules can be authored for behaving differently based on the content of the message.
- Then, further, it also provides dozens of available functions used for transforming your data and creating infinitely more via AWS Lambda. Moreover, rules can also trigger the execution of your Java, Node.js, or Python code in AWS Lambda by giving you maximum flexibility and power for processing device data.
9. Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Integration
Alexa Built-in refers to a category of devices developer with the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) that have a microphone and speaker. You can talk to these products using the word “Alexa,” and instantly receive voice responses and content.
- Firstly, using AVS Integration, you can cost-effectively scale to hundreds of millions of Alexa Built-in devices. Moreover, you can accelerate your time to market with differentiated, voice-forward products.
- Secondly, the AVS Integration for AWS IoT Core helps in shifting media retrieval, audio decoding, audio mixing, and state management from a physical device to a new virtual Alexa Built-in device in the cloud.
- Thirdly, offloading compute and memory-intensive workloads to the cloud and decreasing the on-device requirements for integrating AVS makes it possible for bringing Alexa to resource-constrained and low-cost products. However, with new categories of Alexa Built-in devices available on the market, end users can now experience Alexa in their home, office, or hotel rooms.
- Next, for AVS for AWS IoT, development kits are enabled by real-time operating system for microcontrollers like FreeRTOS and include out-of-the-box connectivity to AWS IoT. Moreover, the kits remove the need for developing your voice application from scratch by including AVS-qualified Audio Algorithms for Far-Field voice pickup, Echo Cancellation, and Alexa Wake Word.
10. AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN
- Firstly, AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN allows customers for connecting wireless devices that use low-power, long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) technology. Moreover, customers can now set up a private LoRaWAN network by connecting their own LoRaWAN devices and gateways to the AWS Cloud using AWS IoT Core.
- Secondly, LoRaWAN includes support for open-source LoRaWAN gateway-LNS communication protocol known as Basic Station. That is to, no writing or testing of custom gateway software is necessary for connecting LoRaWAN gateways to AWS IoT Core. Device data is automatically routed to AWS IoT Core Rules Engine after connecting LoRaWAN gateways and devices. Thus, accelerating IoT application development.
- Thirdly, in this, developers can write rules, like simple SQL queries for transforming and acting on the device data, raising alerts, or routing it to other AWS services like Amazon S3 using the AWS IoT Core Rules Engine. Moreover, customers can connect and scale LoRaWAN device fleets reliably, and build applications with AWS services using pay-as-you-go pricing and no monthly commitments.
- Lastly, AWS IoT Partners provides a simple way to get started by providing AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN qualified gateways. This will help in connecting to AWS IoT Core.
11. Amazon Sidewalk Integration
- Firstly, Amazon Sidewalk refers to a shared network that helps connected devices work better using improved connectivity options.
- Secondly, Sidewalk helps in
- Firstly, simplifying new device setup
- Secondly, extending the low-bandwidth working range of devices
- Lastly, helping devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home Wi-Fi.
- Thirdly, it enables you to easily onboard your Sidewalk device fleets to AWS IoT Core.
- Lastly, Amazon Sidewalk helps in supporting a wide range of customer devices like,
- Firstly, pet or valuables location trackers
- Secondly, smart home security and lighting controllers
- Thirdly, remote diagnostics for home appliances and tools
Moving on, in addition to the above features, AWS IoT core also includes capabilities. So, let’s take a look at them.
AWS IoT Core capabilities
1. Publishing and subscribing to messages with message broker
- The Message Broker is a high throughput pub/sub message broker used for securely transmitting messages to and from all of your IoT devices and applications with low latency. Moreover, AWS IoT Core supports devices and clients that use the MQTT and the MQTT over WSS protocols to pub/sub to messages and devices and clients that use the HTTPS protocol for publishing messages.
2. Mirroring device state
- Device Shadow in AWS IoT Core is used for storing the latest state of a connected device in order to read or set at any time. This makes the device appear to your applications if they are online all the time. That is to say, the application can read a device’s state even when it is disconnected. Moreover, it enables you to set a device state and have it implemented when the device reconnects.
3. Building Alexa Built-in devices cost-effectively at scale
The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Integration for AWS IoT Core introduces a new virtual Alexa Built-in device in the cloud. For using the AVS Integration, customers use a new set of AWS IoT-reserved MQTT topics for transferring MQTT-based audio messages between devices connected to AWS IoT Core and the new virtual Alexa Built-in device. Moreover, this gives access to customers for,
- Firstly, sending and receiving audio messages over the reserved MQTT topics
- Secondly, interfacing with the device microphone and speaker
- Lastly, managing the device-side state all while using the same secure AWS IoT Core connection.
4. Connecting and managing LoRaWAN devices
- AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN helps customers in setting up a private LoRaWAN network. They can do this by connecting their own LoRaWAN devices and gateways to the AWS cloud. This is performed without developing or operating a LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS).
Final Words
Above we have understood the AWS IoT core service by learning about its features and other capabilities. With this, we came to know that there are various other services that are part of AWS IoT core for managing, operating, and delivering the best possible results. Likewise, for the AWS IoT sector, there are many other services as well for providing a new experience for any organization. So, go through the blog and get familiarity with IoT core services and use the reference links for learning more.
