Are you looking for the best cloud platform to host your IoT data? Then you are on the right page as the article below has been written for that. The article describes some of the top cloud platforms for IoT.
- AWS IoT Platform — Overall Best Cloud Platform for IoT
- IBM Watson IoT — Best IoT Platform for AI and analytics
- Kaa IoT platform — Great for collecting IoT data
- Oracle IoT — Best IoT Cloud Platform with Real-Time Analysis Tools
- Cisco IoT — Most Secure IoT Cloud Platform
The Best IoT Cloud Platform List
The “Internet of Things” (IoT) concept has advanced over the years. According to a Business Insider report, by 2027, the IoT market is anticipated to rise to over $2.4 trillion annually. Given that this article’s focus is on IoT cloud platforms, it would be great for us to understand what an IoT device is and what an IoT cloud platform can do.
IoT devices are essentially hardware devices with a variety of sensors that can send data over the internet and other networks of communication. As a result, most data generated by IoT devices are kept on a cloud platform—commonly referred to as the IoT cloud platform—for stability and scalability.
Additionally, IoT cloud platforms perform the work of combining the capabilities of standard cloud platforms and IoT devices to provide end-to-end service. Spreading analytics and data processing across clouds and devices is the goal. However, there are three alternative ways to deploy IoT cloud platforms.
It might be offered as IaaS (infrastructure as a service), SaaS (software as a service), or PaaS (platform as a service). As a result, data from IoT devices are used to influence important decisions in several spheres of our society. Below are some of the top cloud platforms for IoT.
1. AWS IoT Platform — Overall best cloud platform for IoT
AWS IoT is an IoT platform that offers cloud services that let a user’s IoT device connect to both other devices and AWS cloud services. It guarantees the smooth operation and high level of security of these connections. The AWS IoT core can support trillions of messages and billions of devices, and according to Opportunitygreen’s statistics, AWS is used in over 16 million websites around the world, hence, AWS has proven to be a wing of Amazon that hasn’t seen a cease in growth.
These communications are reliably and securely sent to AWS endpoints and other devices. Additionally, devices that use the MQTT and MQTT over WSS protocols to publish messages are supported by the AWS IoT Core message broker. Additionally, it supports devices that publish messages using the HTTPS protocol.
Your apps can always keep track of all your devices’ communications with one another thanks to AWS IoT Core. Even if they are not connected, this tracking is still possible. The AWS IoT platform, however, continues to be the top cloud platform in the market. This is because they provide users with one of the most complete collections of IoT tools.
2. Microsoft Azure IoT – Best alternative to AWS IoT cloud platform
The Azure Internet of Things (IoT) is a collection of Microsoft-managed cloud services that connect, monitor, and control billions of IoT assets. This IoT solution is designed for different industry needs. You can develop flexible applications according to your company’s needs with the help of their ready-to-use tools, templates, and services.
It has strong SDK support for all popular programming languages, including .Net, JavaScript, and others. Hence, it’s an open platform to build a robust application to monitor your network of IoT devices.
Just like its direct competitor, the AWS IoT platform, Azure IoT supports billions of IoT devices with excellent telemetry support. As such, the Azure IoT platform is a user-friendly platform because it can be used by beginners and experts alike.
Interestingly, you can start your IoT journey with Azure IoT Central—the Azure application platform as a service (aPaaS) offering. Microsoft Azure remains a good alternative for AWS IoT.
3. Kaa IoT platform — Great for collecting IoT data
Kaa is a complete IoT platform that can be used for enterprise IoT projects of any size. It offers a variety of features that let programmers create advanced apps for smart technologies. Kaa IoT is another platform like AWS IoT that supports IoT protocols such as MQTT and HTTP.
Kaa IoT offers a data collection protocol that is easy to use. This protocol supports batching. It also gives your devices the ability to buffer data locally before uploading it all at once. Even if AWS IoT and Microsoft Azure IoT can process trillions of messages, Kaa IoT has an advantage over the competition in this regard.
One IoT cloud platform that enables the collection of both structured and unstructured data is this one. It can be a composite data type, like an array or nested objects, or a primitive data type, like plain text or numbers. Additionally, Kaa’s open-source APIs enable connectivity to the required data visualization and analysis tools.
4. IBM Watson IoT — Great for AI and analytics
The IBM Watson IoT Platform is a hub for connecting devices, gateways, and applications for IoT solutions. This IoT platform is available on the IBM Cloud platform (formerly IBM Bluemix). This is a cloud platform based on Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes.
It’s a platform that allows you to optimize operations and resources. While IoT cloud platforms like Kaa IoT are good for data collection, IBM Watson IoT has tools that are great for data analytics and AI.
With IBM IoT, you are able to collect connected device data and perform analytics on real-time data. Hence, this is one platform that can help businesses increase revenue by providing the right business insights.
Another relevant feature of this platform is the ingestion of data from any source with the help of the MQTT protocol. Unlike any other IoT cloud platform, IBM Watson IoT platform is most relevant in supply chain management, energy consumption, shipping, and logistics.
5. Oracle IoT — IoT Cloud Platform with real-time analysis tools
The Oracle Internet of Things (IoT) Cloud Service is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud-based platform. It is an IoT cloud platform that provides the tools for making critical business decisions and strategies. This is possible by allowing you to connect your IoT devices to the cloud for real-time data analysis.
Oracle IoT is one of the major similar platforms like IBM Watson IoT when it comes to analyzing data in real-time. The advantage of Oracle IoT is that it supports the analysis of large amounts of data.
This IoT cloud platform also supports the integration with Oracle and non-Oracle applications as well as IoT devices using the REST API. Furthermore, the Oracle IoT Intelligent Apps provide an option for direct ingestion of telemetry data into your own IoT app.
The advantage is that there would be no need to register an IoT device, use a client library, or define device models. This eventually allows for communication between devices using the HTTP and MQTT protocols.
6. Salesforce IoT Cloud — Best CRM with an IoT cloud platform
Salesforce is a San Francisco-based CRM social enterprise and software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. The company launched its IoT cloud platform in 2015. The Salesforce IoT Cloud platform stores and processes IoT data.
Furthermore, it engages the Thunder engine to drive scalability and processing of events in real time. Using the REST API, you can import IoT data from any source. Since it has partner connectors like Cisco, AWS, and Azure, some of the sources one can draw data from are these IoT cloud platforms.
The platform is built to make use of massive volumes of data generated by devices, sensors, websites, and applications to develop actions for real-time responses. Additionally, it allows users to test business ideas without programming. You would have to contact them for the pricing details.
7. Cisco IoT — IoT Cloud Platform with good security
This mobile, cloud-based Internet of Things platform offers mobile operators’ solutions and enables customizable device deployment options. In addition, Cisco offers dependable Internet of Things infrastructures, such as switches, access points, routers, gateways, and more.
Cisco Kinetic is responsible for the platform’s security. The Cisco IoT Control Centre, one of the Cisco IoT products and solutions, guarantees flawless cellular connectivity control. This makes it possible to incorporate IoT devices into a single SaaS solution.
Additionally, by distributing data flows to local or multi-cloud settings, their edge intelligence contributes to the simplification of data processing, and Cisco IoT Threat Defence guards relevant data and devices against cyberattacks. However, Cisco IoT offers a user-friendly dashboard that is cloud-based. It enables a better view and control of the IoT gateways.
8. ThingSpeak — IoT cloud platform with built-in MATLAB analytic tool
ThingSpeak is an IoT analytics platform. Its services allow you to aggregate, visualize, and analyze live data streams in the cloud. You can send data to ThingSpeak from your devices, create instant visualizations of live data, and send alerts. Unlike other IoT analytical platforms like Oracle IoT, with ThingSpeak, you can implement your IoT projects quickly with the built-in MATLAB analysis tools.
Interestingly, the MATLAB and Simulink products support IoT systems by helping you build predictive algorithms and models. You can further develop and test smart devices and deploy analytics in the cloud. While this IoT cloud platform allows for data collection in private channels, you can also send or share this data in public channels. It also supports event schedule when trying to run your IoT analytics automatically.
9. SAP — Reliable Cloud Platform for IoT
With the SAP Internet of Things solution (SAP IoT), you can create digital twins of physical objects that you wish to track, monitor, or analyze. This is done by combining various services, apps, and user interface (UI) templates.
You can incorporate unprocessed sensor data into business object scenarios using the SAP IoT business service. By doing this, you would be able to use the data for analytical applications that require close to real-time processing.
With the aid of the graphics and visualizations offered by SAP Analytics Cloud, you can draw conclusions from the data collected by sensors. SAP IoT has a strategy of “bring your own data lake.”
This is an attempt to enable customers to integrate data from their own data stores into SAP applications. This means IoT big data collection platforms like Kaa IoT, AWS IoT, and Azure IoT are compatible with SAP applications.
10. Particle — IoT Cloud Platform with good tracking system
Particle is a full-stack IoT platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Particle makes it easier than ever to build connected products that accelerate growth, optimize operations, and change entire industries for the better. This IoT platform supports integration with third-party IoT cloud platforms like Kaa, Azure, and AWS via a REST API.
One unique thing about Particle above other IoT platforms is its support for tracking IoT devices in real-time using geolocation. However, the history of this tracking is saved to allow for analysis and decision-making.
Some of the best use cases of Particle are in live vehicle tracking (mostly around logistics and package delivery), the monitoring of assets in real-time, predictive maintenance, and the fulfillment of orders in real-time.
FAQs
Q. What is IoT?
The acronym “IoT” simply refers to the “Internet of Things.” This is a concept that seeks to harness data generated by several objects. Several types of sensors are attached to these for this purpose.
Data generated is relevant for critical decisions, especially in agriculture, manufacturing, and logistics. The objects could be household appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, etc., or industry equipment like pipelines, trucks, etc.
Q. Which IoT cloud platform should I go for?
Overall, the AWS IoT platform is most preferred. Based on its user satisfaction rate, it has features and different IoT services that users need in one place. These are mainly IoT device management and analytics tools.
It also does very well when it comes to security. If you are looking for the best on the market, AWS IoT will serve you. However, you can check the article above, where we discussed the AWS IoT platform.
Q. Why do I need IoT platform?
An innovative technology that will continuously monitor all your assets is an IoT platform. Your equipment, automobiles, and other IoT devices may be considered among these assets.
These IoT platforms are relevant in fact because they enable you to track all your processes using advanced analysis based on gathered data, which is particularly useful for business owners and researchers. The objective includes accelerating decision-making and problem-solving procedures as well as boosting revenue.
Conclusion
Conclusively, the idea of IoT has come to stay since the demand and scope of the technology are flourishing across diverse industry sectors. It is a very pivotal technology in this digitally driven age, seeing that it really brings ease and makes life easier daily.
Day by day, IoT platforms are becoming channels that are leveraged by many businesses and researchers for real-time results. Hence, in this article, we have discussed a few IoT cloud platforms that offer the best services in this regard.