After years of testing and public previews, the Microsoft Azure Sphere cloud service has finally hit general availability. And it comes alongside a Linux-based microcontroller.
We covered this secure IoT service a while back, chronicling its imminent arrival.
Microsoft first unveiled this hardware and service designed to better secure Internet of Things devices back in 2018, complete with a custom developed Linux OS for microcontrollers. The technology evolving out of a Microsoft Research project called Project Sopris.
Azure Sphere consists of certified single-chip computers that house the processors, storage, memory and IoT capabilities. These are backed by security service that provides authentication, threat response, and on-device and application failure information.
Then there is the Linux based Azure Sphere operating system.
As Galen Hunt, a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and managing director of Azure Sphere, notes:
“IoT is in the science-fair stage. Every enterprise is doing at least one experiment here. But security is really keeping them from going to scale.”
And this is what this new launch aims to address head-on.
Microsoft has revealed that customers who have been using Azure Sphere in preview have used it to design and produce consumer appliances to retail and manufacturing equipment.
There is also the MediaTek MT3620 chips, which are certified for the Azure Sphere platform, and these are being used in guardian modules for securely connecting and protecting mission-critical equipment that make use of this service.
Overall, another solid move from Microsoft to make headways in the fledgling IoT space.
It was also back in 2018 that the technology giant committed $5 billion to invest in intelligent edge innovation by 2020. And this new launch joins the likes of Azure IoT Central, Azure IoT Edge, and Azure Security Center to ease development of Internet of Things solutions.
Some really remarkable moves, all these.
