Learn how today’s entrepreneurs and makers can turn their ideas into viable products with the help of IBM, the official IoT platform and cloud technology provider of the Arrow Certification Program.
The Internet of Things (IoT) presents a tremendous opportunity to bring new value to customers and create recurring, after-market revenue streams through continuous subscription services. The availability of off-the-shelf hardware, software, cloud applications and technical support has opened the IoT market to everyone. This means the IoT opportunity is available to small businesses, startups and even makers with a great idea.
At first glance, the barriers to entry for developing an IoT-based application or adding IoT functionality to an existing application can seem daunting. That’s why Arrow has teamed with market leaders like IBM and Indiegogo to create the Arrow Certification Program. Combined with no-cost access to the IBM Cloud and its extensive range of data analytics, machine-learning and data-mining capabilities, developing a world-class IoT application has never been easier. Plus, with Indiegogo’s crowdfunding platform that showcases new technology to early adopters, you can efficiently source critical funding early.
Getting into the cloud
The cloud is an essential part of the IoT. It can also be one of the most mysterious to developers. However, if you want to build a world-class IoT product, you need access to world-class cloud and cognitive cloud applications that can help you make decisions for your business much more effectively.
As part of the Arrow Certification Program, you can deploy devices to IBM Cloud. IBM Cloud offers capabilities that, until recently, only enterprise-level companies had access to. These include 170+ services ranging from bare metal, containers and serverless computing to hyperscale infrastructure, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and many others.
Security is at the core of these services, so your data and applications are protected. IBM Cloud meets data sovereignty and compliance regulations with its nearly 60 locally owned and operated data centers in 19 countries — more than any other cloud provider.
Each service is also built on an open-source foundation, giving you several choices upon which to build your own applications. And with the scale of IBM Cloud, you can expand your footprint as you grow without ever having to change cloud providers.
Entrepreneurs who qualify for the Arrow Certification Program are eligible for an IBM Cloud Lite account and access to many of the IBM cloud services at no charge. This account includes support for up to 500 registered devices — more than enough to establish a base of devices for application development. For most developers, the Lite account gives you everything you need to complete and prove out your design.
Each device is also allocated up to 200 MB (200,000 KB) per month each of data exchanged, data analyzed and edge data analyzed. This allocation supports a great variety of applications. For example, a temperature sensor generates data at a rate of about 5.6 KB per hour. This gives developers the capacity to design the majority of real-time cloud-based applications without having to worry about managing cloud usage.
The IBM IoT Platform also serves as the hub for IBM Watson IoT (see Figure 1).
This service provides the core capabilities you need to communicate, monitor, analyze and secure your connected devices.
Connect devices to the cloud quickly and easily, then securely register them. The recipes site provides step-by-step instructions for connecting popular devices, sensors and gateways.
Manage your data in the cloud, including configuring data transformation actions and integrating with other data services and device platforms.
Analyze device data in real time through rules, analytics and built-in web console dashboards called cards. Monitor conditions and trigger automatic actions such as alerts and other services to react quickly to critical changes.
Secure the integrity of your IoT ecosystem with secure connectivity and access control for users and applications. You can also extend your security capabilities with threat intelligence for IoT to visualize critical risks and automate operational responses.
Customize your capabilities by building and connecting your own applications using messaging and REST APIs.
Through the Arrow Certification Program and the IBM IoT Platform, Arrow, IBM and Indiegogo are making enterprise capabilities available to entrepreneurs like you today, so you can become one of the technology leaders tomorrow!