A simpler way to move data from the network’s edge to Amazon Web Services

Data has been called “the new oil.” And like oil, it needs to be extracted, processed, and delivered before it has value. Customers have told me how overwhelming the process is when thousands of devices at the network’s edge transmit over multiple protocols and report the same data differently (e.g., metric v English measurements). And even after you’ve solved those problems, moving all Internet of Things data to the cloud for analytics tends to be too costly, especially over cellular networks.

The trick is securely moving the right data to the cloud, in a consistent format.

I’m happy to announce that Cisco and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have collaborated on an integration between AWS IoT Core and Cisco Edge Intelligence software. Cisco Edge Intelligence, which runs on our award-winning industrial gateways, provides a complete solution to move the data that matters from the industrial edge to the AWS Cloud—simply, securely, and at scale.

Toppling the barriers to converting edge data to insights

For a real-world view of the problem we’re solving, imagine you’re monitoring factory-floor robot vibration, vehicle telemetry, or wind turbine speed for preventive maintenance. To get the right data to the cloud you need to answer these questions: What data matters and which is irrelevant? How can I transform data from different vendors’ IoT devices so it’s consistent—for example, all temperatures in C° instead of F°? How can we store data and make it available to other systems and business teams? What happens when we need to scale the process for more devices from more vendors? How can we harness the power of the network between the edge and the cloud to minimize hardware investments? How do we ensure that our data is secure at every stage of the journey?

All-in-one solution to extract, transform, govern, and deliver data to AWS

The new integration solves all of those challenges by making it simpler to extract, transform, govern, and deliver edge data to AWS. Extracting the right data is simpler because popular machine protocols are built right into Edge Intelligence software, saving you from doing the integration work.

Use the same interface to transform data to make it consistent. For example, you may want to only send data that falls above or below a certain threshold, in order to run predictive maintenance algorithms. You can also specify that all temperatures should be expressed as C° even if some vendors’ sensors report them as F°.

Before moving the transformed data to the cloud, you’ll want to define data governance policies, rules about where particular elements of your data can be delivered. This protection gives you flexibility not only to keep your data safe but also to define at the granular level what information goes where. This feature allows you to inform more than one data instance on AWS without compromising control.

With governance in place, you can deliver data to AWS IoT Core with a click. The web-based management interface allows you to specify continued or scheduled data delivery. Edge Intelligence uses a just-in-time provisioning workflow to seamlessly provision Cisco gateway and associated device certificates into AWS IoT Core Registry. Once a gateway is provisioned, you can start sending data to AWS IoT Core. Actions can be performed on the data using Rules for AWS IoT to transform, filter, enrich, and route data in the cloud. This in-turn unlocks a variety of use cases for analytics, reporting, and visualization for the enterprise.

Because of this end-to-end integration, data is secured all the way along the journey from the edge to the cloud, using multiple industry-leading authentication and transport security protocols. Once in the cloud the data is backed by AWS’ comprehensive cloud security, tailored to the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations.

“AWS and Cisco customers are looking for ways to easily and securely connect devices to the cloud,” said Michael MacKenzie, General Manager, IoT Connectivity and Control, AWS. “Cisco has developed a simple end-to-end solution to collect data from the industrial edge and move it to AWS IoT Core at scale. Instead of spending time on custom integrations, Cisco Edge Intelligence with AWS IoT Core allows customers to move faster and focus on innovating in their core business.”

We invite our customers to learn more. Visit our website to learn more, download an overview of the integration, or open up an Edge Intelligence sandbox on our developer portal DevNet. Ready to get started?  Contact sales here.

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