Microsoft today announced a plethora of new Internet of Things-focused updates to its Azure cloud computing platform.
Some of today’s announcements are relatively minor. Azure IoT Central, the company’s solution for helping you get started with IoT, is now generally available and there are updates to Microsoft’s IoT provisioning service, IoT hub message routing tools and Map Control API.
Microsoft said that the Azure IoT platform will now support Google’s Android and Android Things platform via its Java SDK.
What’s more interesting, though, is the new services. The highlight here is probably the launch of Azure Digital Twins. Using this new service, enterprises can now build their own digital models of any physical environment.
It is the virtual counterpart to a real-world IoT deployment and the idea is that as IoT deployment in the real world changes, so does the digital model. It will provide developers with a full view of all the devices they have deployed and allows them to run advanced analytics and test scenarios as needed without having to make changes to the actual physical deployment.
Writing in its bog, Vole said: “As the world enters the next wave of innovation in IoT where the connected objects such as buildings, equipment or factory floors need to be understood in the context of their environments, Azure Digital Twins provides a complete picture of the relationships and processes that connect people, places and devices.”
Azure Digital Twins will launch into preview on October 15.
