Google Launches Cloud Service For Managing Internet of Things Devices

Organizations looking for help managing their internet of things environment now have a new option from Google.

Google has launched a Cloud IoT Core service that lets businesses connect their IoT sensors and devices to the company's cloud platform so the devices can be centrally managed.

When integrated with Google's other hosted services, Cloud IoT Core provides businesses with a one-stop capability for collecting, processing, analyzing and visualizing IoT data in real time, according to the company.

"Cloud IoT Core makes it easy for you to securely connect your globally distributed devices to [Google Cloud Platform], centrally manage them and build rich applications," said Indranil Chakraborty, product manager, Google Cloud in a blog announcing the new service this week. It can help enable new operational insights that businesses can use to optimize their IoT environments, he said.

Google's new service is targeted at enterprises that rely on IoT devices and sensors to streamline operations and gain other efficiencies. Utility companies for instance will be able to harness Cloud IoT Core to monitor, analyze and predict energy use by consumers.

Similarly, transportation and logistics firms can use the service to improve fleet management while companies in the oil, gas, and manufacturing sectors can enable intelligent scheduling of equipment maintenance, Chakraborty said.

The need for a fully managed IoT service such as the one Google has launched, is being driven by the cost and complexity of deploying, maintaining and managing IoT devices.

Security issues and data fragmentation are other considerations as well, Chakraborty said. Many organizations are unable to extract full value from the data generated by IoT devices because the data is often stored in silos and never reaches analytics systems, he noted.

From a functionality standpoint, Cloud IoT Core will help enterprises aggregate data from highly distributed IoT devices and pull it into a central system that is integrated with Google's data analytics services.

Organizations can connect anywhere from a handful of IoT devices to millions of them through protocol endpoints on Google's network that are optimized for load balancing and scalability, according to the company's official description of the new service.

The service comes with features that support two-way communication between IoT devices and the cloud management interface. Organizations can use the capability to push out security updates and other patches to IoT devices that support remote updates.

The Google Cloud IoT Core service integrates with multiple Google cloud analytics services including Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Machine Learning Engine and Google's BigQuery big data analytics service.

The new service is currently available as a private beta, meaning that it is open only to a few selected participants.  As part of the launch, Google this week also announced partnerships with several IoT hardware and software producers. Google's Cloud IoT device partners include Intel, NXP, Sierra Wireless and ARM. Its IoT application software partners include Mnubo, Helium and Losant.