A few weeks ago Google released an updated preview version of the Google Cloud IoT Device SDK for Embedded C at GitHub. The open source C library allows developers to better connect even the simplest IoT devices to Google Cloud IoT Core.

To simplify our initial launch and to scale properly we chose App Engine. As we’re Java guys this made a lot of sense. The main goal for picking PaaS over IaaS is simplicity. We saw it as a shortcut so we can focus on our mobile platform and not on managing servers.

For the first couple of years things worked fine, we had some issues to be sure e.g. a bug in the Eclipse plugin

On March 2015 our monthly “data read ops” suddenly jumped from $70 spend to 4 digits. Being a busy startup we didn’t notice it until the bill arrived and we were already on the April bill!

The thing is we didn’t change anything, or at least didn’t notice any change as we were pretty busy during that time. To this day I have no idea what went wrong but I’m getting ahead of myself…

The “App Engine Datastore Read Ops” billing line item is pretty opaque, it effectively means we read from the datastore too often. Google recommends using memcache for frequent data access which we did but “somewhere” memcache didn’t work. The problem is that this is a needle in a haystack!

Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene foreshadowed the deal earlier this week when she talked about the importance of the internet of things at Goldman Sachs’ technology and internet conference earlier this week.
LogMeIn originally acquired Xively in 2014 for $12 million.

Google announced today that it intends to buy Xively from LogMeIn for $50 million, giving Google Cloud an established IoT platform to add to their product portfolio.

In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Google indicated it wants to use this purchase as a springboard into the growing IoT market, which it believes will reach 20 billion connected things by 2020. With Xively they are getting a tool that enables device designers to build connectivity directly into the design process while providing a cloud-mobile connection between the end user app and the connected thing, whatever that happens to be.

“This acquisition, subject to closing conditions, will complement Google Cloud’s effort to provide a fully managed IoT service that easily and securely connects, manages and ingests data from globally dispersed devices,” Antony Passemard from Google wrote in the blog post.

https://blog.logmeininc.com/logmein-announces-intent-sell-xively-business-google/

Source: https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-65/

When used as part of a broader Google Cloud IoT solution, Cloud IoT Core gives you access to new operational insights that can help your business react to, and optimize for, change in real time. This advantage has value across multiple industries; for example:
Utilities can monitor, analyze and predict consumer energy usage in real time
Transportation and logistics firms can proactively stage the right vehicles/vessels/aircraft in the right places at the right times
Oil and gas and manufacturing companies can enable intelligent scheduling of equipment maintenance to maximize production and minimize downtime

AWS Greengrass – same code in cloud and IoT
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2016/12/17/aws-greengrass-same-code-in-cloud-and-iot/

The Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly becoming a critical aspect of doing business. In the same way that web, mobile and cloud technologies have powered digital transformation, IoT is the next big catalyst.

Yet while IoT brings a new set of benefits for companies that want to keep an edge on their competition, it brings challenges too — IoT solutions can still be complex, and a shortage of skills makes it difficult for everyone to take advantage of this new innovation. To help solve those challenges and simplify IoT, Microsoft is announcing some new technologies and solutions this week.

Announcing Microsoft IoT Central, a new SaaS solution to simplify IoT

Today, Microsoft is announcing Microsoft IoT Central, a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that reduces the complexity of IoT solutions. Microsoft IoT Central is a fully managed SaaS offering for customers and partners that enables powerful IoT scenarios without requiring cloud solution expertise.

Built on the Azure cloud, Microsoft IoT Central simplifies the development process and makes it easy and fast for customers to get started, making digital transformation more accessible to everyone.

Announcing Microsoft IoT Central
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-of-things/iot-central-saas-solutions

Today we’re announcing a new fully-managed Google Cloud Platform (GCP) service called Google Cloud IoT Core. Cloud IoT Core makes it easy for you to securely connect your globally distributed devices to GCP, centrally manage them and build rich applications by integrating with our data analytics services.

Cloud IoT Core is currently available as a private beta, and we’re launching with these hardware and software partners:
Cloud IoT Device Partners
Actions Semiconductor
Allwinner Technology
ARM
Marvell
Microchip
Intel
Mongoose OS
NXP
Realtek
Sierra Wireless
SOTEC