THE INTERNET OF THINGS WITH MICROSOFT
The Internet of Things (IoT), is the internetworking of physical devices embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. This system of interrelated computing devices, digital machines, people, and objects are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without the need for human-to-human or human-to-machine interaction. Microsoft has simplified this concept into something as simple as connecting devices through an on and off switch to the internet, and/or to each other. Azure IoT Suite and Cortana Analytics Suite are some products that Microsoft has launched to make the Internet of Things something that is achievable across businesses worldwide.
The Azure IoT suite can enable you to connect with a wide range of devices and operating systems. These connected devices send data to the Azure Cloud gateway (or to an IoT client or intermediate gateway that relays this message to the cloud gateway). This data is then received by the IoT backend which processes and stores it. Its Power BI then enables you to analyze the data and present it in a way that is desirable depending on your preference. This scalability that is provided by Azure IoT Suite is quite ideal, especially for large enterprises.
The Cortana Analytics Suite enables a user to query data without having to use complex BI client programs. The Azure-based Cortana analytic service processes the query and returns the results to you. The Power BI can provide analysis for organizational data, while predictive results can be generated through integrating this with machine Learning. Microsoft has designed Cortana Analytics Suite to be useful for businesses of all sizes, especially smaller enterprises, given the fact that no capital expenditures or expensive software licenses are required to get started.
The Internet of Things allows for virtually boundless opportunities and links to take place. With this, arises the issue of security. People can't help but worry about what might happen in case someone was to hack into one of their devices and get access to their entire network. Microsoft's Threat Modeling Tool solves this issue by finding threats in the design phase of software projects and mitigating existing data flow diagrams. It is imperative for enterprises to store, track, analyze and make sense out of all this data and of more importance, do this in a secure way. Microsoft's products are definitely the better choice for anyone who wants to achieve this.
