More than a dozen AWS partners, including Annapurna, BSquare, Canonical, Digi International, Intel, Lenovo, Mongoose, Qualcomm Technologies, Raspberry Pi, Samsung, Technicolor and Wistron are integrating AWS Greengrass into their platforms so devices will come with AWS Greengrass built-in.
With the proliferation of IoT devices, enterprises are increasingly managing infrastructure that is not located in a data center, such as connected devices in factories, oil wells, agricultural fields, hospitals, cars, and various other venues. Because these devices often have limited processing power and memory, many rely heavily on AWS and the cloud for processing, analytics, and storage. However, there are circumstances when relying exclusively on the cloud isn’t optimal due to latency requirements or intermittent connectivity that make a round trip to the cloud unfeasible. In these situations, IoT devices must be able to perform some tasks locally. Programming and updating software functionality on IoT devices is challenging and complex. Relatively few developers have the expertise to update these embedded systems, and even fewer can do so without creating unwanted downtime.
AWS Greengrass eliminates the complexity involved in programming and updating IoT devices by allowing customers to use AWS Lambda to run code locally on connected devices in the same way they do on the AWS Cloud. With AWS Greengrass, developers can add AWS Lambda functions to connected devices right from the AWS Management Console, and devices can execute the code locally, responding to events and taking actions in near real-time. AWS Greengrass also includes AWS IoT messaging and synching capabilities so devices can send messages to other devices without connecting back to the cloud.
“Many of the world’s largest IoT implementations run on AWS, and customers across industries – from energy, to mining, to media and entertainment – have asked us whether we could extend AWS’s industry leading cloud capabilities to the edge,” said Dirk Didascalou, Vice President of IoT at AWS. “By embedding AWS Lambda and AWS IoT capabilities in connected devices, AWS Greengrass gives customers the flexibility to have devices act locally on the data they generate while using the AWS Cloud for management, analytics, and storage – all using a single, familiar AWS programming model. We are excited to make AWS Greengrass available to all AWS customers, and with AWS partners shipping AWS Greengrass-capable devices it is now incredibly easy to build and run IoT applications that seamlessly span devices on the edge and in the AWS Cloud.”
"Connected devices improve all aspects of our daily lives, from the smart meters in our homes that help us save energy, to the black boxes in our cars that show us how we’re driving, to the stoplights with sensors that monitor traffic,” said Fabio Veronese, Head of Infrastructure and Technological Services at Enel. "Enel is building AWS Greengrass-enabled smart gateways for the home and industrial gateways for our power generation sites, where AWS Greengrass will allow us to process and act on large volumes of data with sub-millisecond latency."