What Is an IoT Platform?
An end-to-end IoT platform enables the provisioning, management, and automation of connected devices within the IoT cloud. It connects edge hardware, access points, and data networks to end-user applications and devices. It acts as a connectivity management platform, providing a flexible, secure, and efficient foundation that spans device and data management. With an IoT platform, businesses can easily connect IoT devices to global networks, invisibly administer them, and then extract real-time data from them for analysis. Specifically, connectivity management capabilities allow IT to easily, securely, and cost-effectively connect IoT devices on multiple network standards. Device management features enable secure, reliable onboarding, connection, updates, and lifecycle management of different types of IoT devices deployed on premises or via the cloud. Data management makes the trusted data from IoT devices and enterprise data accessible for analysis. IoT platform offerings can be tailored to specific needs, with options like an IoT cloud platform, IoT data platform, or IoT device management platform.
Why an IoT Platform?
With a secure, end-to-end IoT platform, businesses can add intelligence to the IoT, enabling the extraction and analysis of data from each connected device. It provides endpoint security and resilient networking while allowing it to connect with any device, data, network, or cloud. An IoT platform also allows IT to easily, efficiently add to the network and interconnect new IoT devices and services.