{"id":188,"date":"2017-03-01T18:10:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T18:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allabouttheproduct.com\/blog\/?p=188"},"modified":"2017-05-11T13:09:34","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T13:09:34","slug":"experience-with-aws-iot-platform-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allabouttheproduct.com\/blog\/iot\/experience-with-aws-iot-platform-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience with AWS IoT platform, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second blog in a series <\/a>looking at the complexity of using well known cloud compute platforms for building solutions for the Internet of Things.<\/p>\n

\"Amazon<\/a>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

The IoT \u201crules\u201d and \u201cactions\u201d within AWS IoT are what allow you to bring your IoT data to life within the cloud through associated AWS services.<\/p>\n

My first observations about setting these up gave me the sense that this was going to be quite tricky- using the AWS command line interface to craft new roles and policies to be able to use different AWS services.<\/p>\n

However, this setup work is now starting to get a whole lot easier, with the introduction of a set of guided UI steps in the IoT suite which make it easier to accomplish the end goal. I was able, with relatively little effort, to setup publishing using an IoT program on a client to create IoT data files in the AWS storage cloud and make these publically visible on the web.<\/p>\n

Whilst saying this, I experienced a few odd quirks from the platform e.g. when trying to configure IoT automated actions. Whilst I can\u2019t claim strong knowledge of the platform, the reasons for the issues were far from clear and it may well be that there is just one way of doing things.<\/p>\n

My feeling is however, that it would be a small step from here to have the client program running on a reasonable scale embedded platform e.g. one with Wi-Fi\/IP stack. Indeed, the AWS IoT button<\/a> is a good example and AWS themselves reference a number of other suitable hardware platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AWS have a number of services to connect with the IoT platform e.g. database and simple notification services which are bundled under a somewhat \u201cvertical\u201d navigation scheme; it is a shame that the service \u201cworked examples\u201d are rather spread around the AWS documentation, meaning that the problem you are trying to solve may have an answer, but you can\u2019t always see it from your current silo.<\/p>\n

AWS IoT platform rules & actions<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a previous blog<\/a>, I looked at the basic epics and user stories for an IoT system and cross referenced the experience with the AWS IoT platform. This previous blog only touched on the basic connection experience with AWS IoT: configuring end-points with identity certificates, setting up the target internet access point and enabling the basic data publish policy on the cloud end. These are represented by the greyed out boxes in the initial block picture.<\/p>\n

This piece is an initial look at the next step operations possible with the AWS IoT system:<\/p>\n