Google taps Foghorn to simplify the deployment of industrial IoT solutions (GOOGL)

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Google and software provider Foghorn Systems have teamed up to help manufacturers simplify the deployment of industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions and maximize the business value they can derive from the IoT, according to ZDNet.

Through the partnership, Google Cloud will integrate its IoT Core managed platform with Foghorn's Lighting Edge Intelligence edge computing platform. Edge computing refers to when data is stored, processed, and analyzed locally, rather than in the cloud or at a remote data center. IoT Core, which Google first unveiled last spring, is a fully managed service that enables companies to easily and securely connect, manage, and ingest data from IoT devices. Foghorn's platform, meanwhile, is an edge-based machine learning and analytics platform designed to help companies sift through and make sense of massive data sets very quickly.

Integration between the companies' offerings will give customers added flexibility when processing and analyzing their IIoT data:

• Manufacturers will be able to deploy the processing and analytics capabilities of IoT Core at the edge for the first time. Previously, IoT Core was only available through Google's core cloud service. This partnership will help Google grab a share of the 5.6 million IoT devices around the globe that will be connected to an edge-based computing solution in 2020.

• Access to Foghorn's Lightning Edge Intelligence will also allow IoT Core customers to analyze data from IoT deployments they were previously unable to.Cloud-based analytics are highly capable but often limited by the constrained capabilities of the networks they are connected to. Sensors deployed on a remote oil pipeline, for instance, might face latency issues that require the sensors' data to be run via edge computing instead of through cloud-based analytics.

• In addition, data captured through compatible IoT devices will be able to be run through Google Cloud's standard features. This includes the search engine's Pub/Sub, Google BigQuery, the Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine, and Google Data Studio. Companies will be able to use all of these features at the edge of the network or in the cloud, adding flexibility and limiting potential latency issues.

This partnership is important for Google, which was a late entrant to the IoT platform market, compared with Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM, but is aggressively trying to catch up via partnerships and acquisitions. These other players have offered cloud- and edge-based platforms for at least the three years, while Google IoT Core only came out of the public beta testing phase last month.

While IoT Core offers standard features like data storage, analytics, and dashboard-based data visualization, it doesn't have the long list of features offered by earlier entrants like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or IBM's Bluemix. Google’s now building a more robust features list via numerous acquisitions and strategic hiring. Last month, the company purchased Xively from software provider LogMeIn to add IoT device management capabilities to IoT Core, and hired longtime Samsung CTO Injong Rhee to coordinate and lead its enterprise IoT efforts; this agreement with Foghorn is just the latest iteration of this strategy.

The search giant will likely continue to try and leverage its extensive background in machine learning to add more features and attract more partners, but it still has a long way to go before it poses a serious threat to Amazon and others in the $325 billion IoT platform market.

Through an exclusive study and in-depth research into the field, Business Insider Intelligence (Business Insider's premium research service) details the components that make up the IoT ecosystem. We size the IoT market and use exclusive data to identify key trends in device installations and investment. And we profile the enterprise and consumer IoT segments individually, drilling down into the drivers and characteristics that are shaping each market.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• We project that there will be more than 55 billion IoT devices by 2025, up from about 9 billion in 2017.

• We forecast that there will be nearly $15 trillion in aggregate IoT investment between 2017 and 2025, with survey data showing that companies' plans to invest in IoT solutions are accelerating.

• The report highlights the opinions and experiences of IoT decision-makers on topics that include: drivers for adoption; major challenges and pain points; deployment and maturity of IoT implementations; investment in and utilization of devices; the decision-making process; and forward- looking plans.

In full, the report:

• Provides a primer on the basics of the IoT ecosystem.

• Offers forecasts for the IoT moving forward, and highlights areas of interest in the coming years.

• Looks at who is and is not adopting the IoT, and why.

• Highlights drivers and challenges facing companies that are implementing IoT solutions.

   

 

 

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