Microsoft has announced the launch of the public preview of Microsoft IoT Edge during the Connect() conference. Technically, the Microsoft IoT Edge is a new variant of the IoT Gateway Software Development Kit, which is designed to provide edge computing in IoT scenarios.
The IoT Edge make use of modules to provide units of execution as part of device message processing. The latest release extends the previous SDK, which enables containers to be executed as part of the processing pipeline. It is possible to use either Linux or Windows containers for Docker.
If you are unaware, the IoT Edge ships with several features and capabilities to the previous SDK such as AI Toolkit for Azure IoT Edge, Azure Machine Learning, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Functions and Custom modules. The AI Toolkit consists of scripts, code, and tutorials that help you to understand the usage of machine learning at the edge.
While the Azure Stream Analytics make use of the same SQL language that is employed in the cloud-based solution, the Azure Functions takes advantage of the same Azure function development process finally initialized for deployment to IoT Edge. You can create Custom IoT Edge modules in several languages such as C, C#, and Python. Moreover, you can use VS Code to develop, debug and deploy the relevant code in containers for deployment to the edge.
Microsoft has implemented a twin module to provide the same style of cloud-based configuration, which can be used to update and reconfigure an edge device or gateway. This is required to be done as part of the normal lifecycle management. It is also possible to deploy IoT Edge configuration and containers from Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and leverage the same security processes.
With the help of edge computing, several IoT scenarios will benefit. You can apply image processing to look for defects in manufacturing processes. It is also possible to aggregate sensor data before delivering to the cloud. The IoT Edge will be able to run or x64 or ARM hardware architectures. It enables Microsoft to compete with other solutions such as IBM Watson Edge Analytics, SAP Leonardo IoT Edge, and AWS Greengrass.
