Edge software provider IOTech announced it is expanding its partnership with Google Cloud to offer smart and integrated edge-cloud solutions for enterprise companies. With this partnership, industrial users including manufacturing, building automation, and smart energy can now deploy smart, no-code and integrated edge-cloud solutions at scale, the company said.
This expanded partnership will impact industrial IoT deployments which come with certain challenges including OT/IT integration. The northbound communication protocol to Google Cloud is typically MQTT or REST while the southbound communication protocols include Modbus, BACnet, Ethernet/IP, S7, OPC-UA and many more.
Other challenges industrial users face include the ability to extract data from old and legacy IoT devices and the ability to control what data specifically is sent to Google Cloud, mainly for security, latency and/or cost reasons. Edge computing capabilities and features therefore play an increasingly important role in industrial IoT.
The partnership allows the industrial user to deploy a smart, no-code and integrated edge-cloud solution at scale. IOTech’s Edge Xpert typically resides on the edge gateway or server level while Edge XRT can reside on legacy or resource constrained hardware such as MCUs and PLCs, typically found at the far edge. Both platforms come with 20 plus OT connectors including Modbus, BACnet, Ethernet/IP, S7, OPC-UA, and many more. The platforms also include an SDK making it easy for customers to build new OT connectors, if required. Seamless data integration with Google Cloud is provided as standard.
“IOTech is excited to be a Google Cloud Edge ISV partner. The integrated edge-cloud solution allows for fast deployments, significantly reducing the time to value. Adding an OT device is enabled through simple configuration and no coding skills are required,” said Keith Steele, CEO of IOTech Systems.
