Enterprise IoT solutions: get the best of Azure

At akenza, we believe that flexibility is the key to success in IoT projects. In our previous article Enterprise IoT solutions with akenza: making the POC scale, we have seen how akenza supports the scalability of POCs and how important it is to support a diversity of input and output types. Thanks to our integration with Azure IoT Hub, we enable our customers to integrate IoT devices into enterprise-grade processes easily.

Microsoft Azure has more than 200 products and cloud services designed to help you bring new solutions to life —to solve today’s challenges and create the future of cloud-based systems. Build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds, on-premises, and at the edge, with the tools and frameworks of your choice. (source: Microsoft)

Our goal is to make IoT more accessible, so you can get the best out of Azure without developing everything from scratch. Using the right tool for every task allows you to reduce effort and costs while letting you focus on what matters: creating value for your business.

akenza + Microsoft Azure: the right tool for every task

Azure is a powerful environment that enables endless possibilities. When it comes to IoT, it provides Azure IoT Hub, an application to manage devices, Azure Stream Analytics to manage data streams, and Azure Data Explorer to enable real-time data analytics. Azure supports the creation of state-of-the-art digital solutions in the cloud. It makes it the tool choice to support the digitization process of corporations. Many companies have already implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365, and can already count on Microsoft Power BI for their data analysis solutions. Therefore, if you want to take out the most from the infrastructure you already have in place, it is a good idea to make your IoT data go through Azure IoT Hub as it seamlessly integrates with the entire Microsoft ecosystem.

The challenge you may face is that Azure's applications will require specific skills to be developed and configured correctly. The expertise required to make all its modules work together could be a high barrier to overcome for most organizations.

It is the reason why we created a direct integration to Azure IoT Hub from Microsoft. We want to make IoT more accessible by letting you choose your hardware, the connectivity technology and by supporting the exchange of data with third-party applications in the easiest possible way. We believe that this is how we can provide value to your IoT journey: take advantage of no-code device setup, no-code business logic, no-code data management, and interface setup.

The right tool for the right task drives our philosophy, and the combination of akenza and Azure is the best representation of it.

With akenza, you can easily overcome the complexity of:

• Connecting multiple devices in the same project

• Manage and store vast quantities of data

• Organize devices and use cases in workspaces

• Use tags to manage data and group devices

• Build your business logic without writing a single line of code

But when it comes to enterprise-grade applications, interoperability is the key. Through the new IoT Hub Connector, it is now possible to integrate akenza and Azure in minutes. So you can get the best of Microsoft’s ecosystem without dealing with the complexity of the IoT world. Let akenza take care of that.

Great, but what can I actually do with akenza and Azure?

Let's consider a complex project, not so far away from a typical IoT implementation.

You start by monitoring the air quality in your headquarters and soon decide to monitor the occupancy of rooms and desks. The amount of devices begins to be significant, and we are just getting started. Sometime later, you realize that you would like to monitor energy consumption, leading to the implementation of smart metering devices. Not enough? What about smart cleaning solutions to optimize cleaning services by monitoring the usage of toilets? But we are still in the HQ; let's move outside to monitor parking lots' occupancy to enable smart parking cases. We now enter the factory with its numerous engines running and complex machinery. Let's monitor their vibrations to predict possible failures, and to track our expeditions, let's add GPS devices to trucks and trailers.

The list could go on, but I think you got the point. These devices may have different types of connectivities, with fixed or moving assets, indoors or outdoors. The number of variables can quickly take the elevator. How many platforms do you think you may need to implement all these different use cases? Just one, akenza: "one platform to rule them all…"

With akenza, you can now manage all these devices in the cloud without thinking about different connectivity technologies, payload decoders, data growth, or server maintenance. You can also implement specific business logic to link device behaviors and enable control loops such as automatic feedback systems.

But you can go further.

All the generated data holds a hidden value that only waits to be uncovered. The setup requires minutes to get all this data into Microsoft Azure to start exploring this value:

• Correlate temperature/air quality/occupancy/energy consumption into Power BI analysis to optimize your building

• Visualize parking/rooms/desks occupancies live in Sharepoint to provide valuable services to employees and guests

• Integrate data into Microsoft Dynamics 365 to digitize your supply chain like in our “oil monitoring” use case

And the list goes on.

Does one of these examples resonate with your business requirements?

Then, you can start using akenza for free with our 30-day trial or simply contact us to discuss your next IoT journey together.