When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), many companies are promising that their solution or platform will simplify IoT. Microsoft is no exception. The company debuted Microsoft IoT Central, a managed software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for customers that do not have a lot of cloud experience.
IoT Central is built on the Azure cloud and will use Microsoft’s existing Azure IoT suite to make it easier for companies to deploy IoT. For example, Microsoft has a preconfigured product called Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory that is targeted at manufacturers to help them connect Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) on-premises devices to the Microsoft cloud and configure those devices so they have a secure connection.
Microsoft said it has partnered with OPC companies like Unified Automation, Softing, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise to streamline the Connected Factory platform.
At the same time, the company also is introducing a new service called Azure Time Series Insights that will provide analytics, storage, and visualization to make it easier for companies to analyze all the data to discover trends and spot anomalies as well as conduct root-cause analysis.
Both IoT Central and Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory will leverage the Azure Time Series Insights, which is available for preview.
Microsoft also introduced Azure IoT Hub Device provisioning, which is also intended to simplify things for customers. Customers can register and provision their devices to the IoT Hub, and devices running on Windows 10 IoT operating systems will be able to connect to device provisioning via a client application.