https://www.iotworldtoday.com/wp-content/themes/ioti_child/assets/images/logo/mobile-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
    • Back
    • Embedded IoT World (Part of DesignCon) 2022
Iot World Today
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
    • Back
    • Embedded IoT World (Part of DesignCon) 2022
  • newsletter
  • IIoT
  • Cities
  • Energy
  • Homes/Buildings
  • Transportation/Logistics
  • Connected Health Care
  • Retail
  • AI
  • Metaverse
  • Development
  • Security
ioti.com

Architecture


Google Cloud IoT Strategies

Enterprises may lack knowledge of Google Cloud IoT compared to competitors, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a look.
  • Tom Nolle
  • 18th October 2021

Google is usually ranked third among the public cloud market leaders in revenues.  As cloud and IoT innovators, they surely rank higher, perhaps even at the top.  Google’s own business runs on a sophisticated set of cloud tools that launched concepts like Kubernetes and Istio, giving them considerable experience in creating high availability and performance on a strong platform of infrastructure efficiency.  Google Cloud IoT strategies are not as well-known or easily reviewed as those of Amazon or Microsoft and may require taking a different slant on cloud IoT, but they’re definitely worth consideration.

High-Level IoT Support in Google Cloud

Google recently unveiled a broader strategy for cloud-to-edge scenarios, with the announcement of Google Distributed Cloud.

The platform is effectively a platform-software layer that applications can be developed for, and which can then be hosted not only in Google’s cloud, but on premises edge devices, and even in enterprise data centers.  While the feature is not fully available until 2022, it promises to provide the richest possible model for the distribution of IoT features and could even be used in cloud-provider or other edge computing facilities.

It doesn’t take more than a glance at the Google Cloud website to see that Google takes an IoT strategy different from its competitors, Amazon and Microsoft. Both those companies feature IoT fairly prominently on their list of products, and list a variety of IoT-related services.  Google puts IoT in its list of products, but it only lists two IoT elements: Cloud IoT Core and Edge TPU, an AI chip that features as an element in Google’s Coral IoT edge products.

This doesn’t mean Google doesn’t offer the features of its competitors, however. It offers them in a different way. Cloud IoT Core is a managed IoT service that handles what’s essentially the front-end processes of IoT device deployment, management and security, and provides connectivity with other Google Cloud applications that then support IoT application development, analytics and data storage and retrieval. IoT, to Google Cloud, is IoT devices plus application development and deployment.  That’s the same as its cloud competitors, although Google’s application-centric approach differs from their IoT-centric assembly of elements.

While it’s possible to build Google Cloud IoT applications without Google’s IoT elements, it requires more development work. Thus, it might be best to start your IoT strategy with the question of whether Google’s Cloud IoT Core would be a suitable piece of your strategy, and whether the managed service pricing is acceptable. If not, then Google’s IoT may be difficult to adopt.

Edge and Device Options

The Device Manager element in Cloud IoT Core provides for the deployment, configuration, monitoring and connection to IoT devices.  Google supports a wide variety of IoT devices and protocols with the Device Manager, and the service is cloud-resident and implemented as a serverless/microservice-based component, so it’s highly scalable.  If the devices meet Google’s security requirements, Cloud IoT Core will offer full-stack security.  Roles based on IAM values are supported to provide for user access control to IoT data.

Unlike Amazon and Microsoft’s IoT strategies, which offer a means of extending their cloud features onto a compatible on-premises server, Google doesn’t promote the extension of Google Cloud onto the premises.  The Cloud IoT Core element instead provides publish-and-subscribe interfaces to link IoT telemetry to cloud applications, and Google supports a variety of protocols that provide coupling between a premises IoT edge device and Google Cloud.  However, a gateway is provided with Cloud IoT Core to support offline operation for devices that have constrained resources.  The gateway is able to stand in for the device in communicating with other Cloud IoT Core components, and then synchronize when the device is available. Stackdriver Monitoring is available to create dashboards, alert and escalation flows and reports, in real time or summary form, and to set and report on thresholds.  Stackdriver Logging provides for connection, traffic and error logging, and again allows users to set thresholds and report on exceptions based on those settings.  This is tied to Cloud Pub/Sub logs to publish/subscribe traffic and show the correlation between devices and events.

IoT Event Processing

Google’s custom ASIC (Edge TPU) was designed to support the forward staging of AI for latency-sensitive applications.  The ASIC is available to device manufacturers, but Google has a relationship with Coral to provide a variety of edge controllers equipped with the chip.  Other edge elements can be adopted for local event processing, either by using one of the device-linked IoT protocols or creating a custom link to Cloud Pub/Sub, Google’s message/event ingestion service.

Cloud Pub/Sub is the on-ramp for all event processing in Google’s IoT model.  It provides for conversion of messages and events into a general publish/subscribe form, and that allows any Google Cloud or Cloud IoT application, and user applications as well, to subscribe to event flows and receive IoT messages based on their needs.  Cloud Pub/Sub is a framework for guaranteed event delivery, event steering and even features to ensure that all events are processed fully.  It also includes security/compliance features that minimize the challenges of building compliant IoT applications.

Cloud Pub/Sub is an independent service of Google Cloud, and is used by the managed Cloud IoT Core service’s Protocol Bridge element to connect to devices.  Thus, IoT applications that don’t use Cloud IoT Core for some reason can still link to the rest of Google’s IoT-friendly cloud services, including analytics.  There is also a Pub/Sub Lite version available where sophisticated processing capabilities are less important than low cost.

IoT Analytics

The Cloud Pub/Sub interface couples events to any of Google’s analytics tools (Cloud Dataflow, BigQuery, Cloud Bigtable, ML and Google Data Studio), as well as third-party analytics or AI applications that can use Cloud Pub/Sub.  Google also offers a rich set of tools and applications using artificial intelligence and machine learning.  These are available to IoT applications, but they’re not explicitly integrated with Google’s IoT offerings.

While Google has some digital twin tools at the business process level (its recent Supply Chain Digital Twin is a good example), it has not yet offered digital twinning of IoT applications or IoT infrastructure.  As is the case with edge computing, Google may be dependent on third-party relationships to support a broader digital twin IoT application framework, but that is not yet announced.

Google Cloud IoT in Summary

It’s a simple truth that enterprises choose competitors’ IoT offerings more often than they choose Google’s.  Part of this is likely due to both Amazon and Microsoft having larger cloud customer bases, and another part is the fact that Google isn’t nearly as familiar a partner to enterprises.  Instead, enterprises may view Google as a social media company, which in revenue terms is true.

Google’s technical tools for IoT are exceptional, but the packaging of their IoT offerings is different enough from competitors that it may be difficult for prospective buyers to identify what’s needed and how to use it.  It’s definitely going to take more effort for an enterprise to evaluate a Google Cloud IoT solution than it will for solutions from Amazon or Microsoft, but enterprises who don’t make the effort may be missing something good.

Tags: Architecture Technologies

Related


  • The Future of IoT: Top Trends We Expect to See in 2022
    Edge computing, 5G and AI will drive value for the connected enterprise this year
  • Fox Sports Taps OpenDrives for Data Management Architecture
    OpenDrives software and hardware ­­is expected to reduce the data management footprint of Fox Sports live broadcasts.
  • Fleet Space Raises $26M for IoT Nanosatellite Connectivity
    Australia-based Fleet Space Technologies ­plans to use the funding to drive the expansion of its nanosatellite IoT connectivity fleet.
  • Ericsson’s Intelligent Automation Platform Creates Smarter, Faster Networks
    The company's automated orchestration tools allow mobile network operators to optimize service delivery using machine learning.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your IoT World Today account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Content

  • Water Authority Bolsters IoT Resilience With Cisco Cyber Vision
  • Exploring IoT Connectivity Options
  • IoT Wireless Connectivity Matures, Industry Watchers Say
  • DesignCon 2021 Brings Attendees to San Jose

Roundups

View all

IoT Product Roundup: PTC, Nokia, Arm and More

19th May 2022

IoT Deals, Partnerships Roundup: Intel, Nauto, Helium and more

14th May 2022

IoT Product Roundup: Amazon, Synaptics, Urban Control and More

27th April 2022

White Papers

View all

The Role of Manufacturing Technology in Continuous Improvement Ebook

6th April 2022

IIoT Platform Trends for Manufacturing in 2022

6th April 2022

Latest Videos

View all
Dylan Kennedy of EMQ

Embedded IoT World 2022: Dylan Kennedy of EMQ

Dylan Kennedy, EMQ’s VP of global operations, sat down with Chuck Martin at Embedded IoT World 2022.

Embedded IoT World 2022: Omdia’s Sang Oh Talks Vehicle Chip Shortage

Omdia’s automotive semiconductor analyst sits down with Chuck Martin at this year’s event

E-books

View all

How Remote Access Helps Enterprises Improve IT Service and Employee Satisfaction

12th January 2022

An Integrated Approach to IoT Security

6th November 2020

Webinars

View all

Rethinking the Database in the IoT Era

18th May 2022

Jumpstarting Industrial IoT solutions with an edge data management platform

12th May 2022

AI led Digital Transformation of Manufacturing: Time is NOW

9th December 2021

Special Reports

View all

Omdia’s Smart Home Market Dynamics Report

7th January 2022

Cybersecurity Protection Increasingly Depends on Machine Learning

28th October 2020

IoT Security Best Practices for Industry and Enterprise

20th October 2020

Twitter

IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

The U.S. Army is getting a 5G boost for #AR #VR capabilities from #5G network provider @OceusNetworks.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

@IoTWorldSeries and The #AISummit will be hosted this year in Silicon Hills, the tech hub of Austin, Texas. Acces… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Hannover Messe 2022: @BoschGlobal,@BostonDynamics robotics showcased. @hannover_messe dlvr.it/SQzhr1 https://t.co/vHWRmsIGcm

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

📣JUNE DIGITAL SYMPOSIUM Drive your strategy forward and stay on the #Healthcare and #IndustrialIoT pulse with key… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Hyundai Investing $5B on Autonomous Driving and Robotics dlvr.it/SQzfZh https://t.co/1Jyr4Xlord

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Partner with @IoTWorldToday to reach your prospects and accomplish your goals in 2022. Download our 2022 IoT Mark… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Explore Emerging Tech For Enterprises at @TechXLR8 2022 this June ➡️ Join us from 1-3 June in harnessing the pow… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Clearview AI has been fined $9.4 million for collecting images of people from social media platforms to add to its… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

24th May 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for IoT World Today newsletters: vertical industry coverage on Tuesdays and horizontal tech coverage on Thursdays.

Special Reports

Our Special Reports take an in-depth look at key topics within the IoT space. Download our latest reports.

Business Resources

Find the latest white papers and other resources from selected vendors.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IoT World Series
  • Channel Futures
  • RISC-V
  • Dark Reading
  • ITPro Today
  • Web Hosting Talk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Login/Register

FOLLOW IoT World Today ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X