Google’s Cloud IoT Core Is Now Available

Are you an enterprise interested in the Internet of Things (IoT)? Then this article is for you. Google just made their Cloud IoT Core generally available. This could potentially streamline every aspect of IoT integration for an organization looking to employ the technology.

An All-In-One Solution to All IoT Needs?

Google’s description of Cloud IoT Core is rather all-encompassing: “Cloud IoT Core is a fully managed service that allows you to easily and securely connect, manage, and ingest data from millions of globally dispersed devices. Cloud IoT Core, in combination with other services on Google Cloud IoT platform, provides a complete solution for collecting, processing, analyzing, and visualizing IoT data in real time to support improved operational efficiency.”

When you put it that way, you have to wonder — how has IoT development even functioned before the advent of this service? Jests aside, Google’s enterprise service, which had a public beta launch last September, could become crucial for enterprises utilizing IoT on a mass scale. Able to integrate with a host of Google’s analytics services (Google’s Cloud Machine Learning Engine, Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Bigtable, BigQuery, etc.), Cloud Core IoT could serve as the pipeline that enterprises seamlessly push data through and get unique insights in return.

Currently, the new service supports standard device-talking protocols like MQTT and HTTP. Of course, it also supports Google’s Android Things IoT platform as well as an array of products from Cisco, Intel, NXP, Sierra Wireless, ARM, and other hardware makers.

The Bottom Line for Enterprise IoT

Prior to its public release, IoT Core had a few features added in response to beta user feedback. Of course, if you’re a business, the most important update worth noting is the billing process.

Google bills by megabyte of ingested data. The first 250 megabytes of the month are complimentary; after that, it’s $.0045 per megabyte. If you surpass 250 gigabytes, you’ll receive a discount, although how much is not known at the time of writing this.

Stiff Cloud Competition

Surprisingly, Google can still be the underdog when it comes to some things, and enterprise cloud competition happens to be one of them. Amazon and Microsoft both actually have a significant market share lead over the tech titan with AWS IoT Core and Azure IoT Suite, respectively.

Google hopes it can even the playing field with the Seattle development giants through its recent acquisition of LogmeIn’s Xively IoT platform. Xively refines device management and messaging for IoT networks, so it seems likely that Google will integrate this into their new service. 

Enterprise IoT is only growing with each day that passes, so whether this move will be enough to give Google the edge will only be revealed with time. But it’s not likely that Microsoft and Amazon will sit back and watch.