Announcing the IoT Atlas

Since announcing the availability of AWS IoT in 2015, our conversations with customers have made it clear that long-standing IoT design patterns from mature domains such as as sensor networks, control system architectures, and machine-to-machine networks had to be revised to include cloud development concepts. The IoT Atlas is a collection of IoT designs available in an easy to use, searchable website (https://iotatlas.net). It updates and expands on industry designs by assuming that a hyper-scale cloud is available to those who are building IoT solutions. The IoT Atlas is a resource for new and long-time solution builders alike.

Because the designs are cloud-service agnostic, the IoT Atlas is being published as a repository on GitHub. By publishing the content under a Creative Commons license, we hope to facilitate customer, field, and partner contributions of design ideas, considerations, and examples. We also hope to spark conversation and understanding about new IoT patterns in solutions.

The following designs are now available in the IoT Atlas:

Command: A requesting entity reliably asks a device to perform a single action, with acknowledgement of status.
Device Bootstrap: An unregistered device becomes registered and fully functional in an IoT solution.
Device State Replica: A logical representation of a physical device’s reported state or desired future state.
Gateway: A device acts as an intermediary between local devices as well as devices and the cloud.
Software Update: A device obtains new software, performs an update on itself, and confirms completion.
Telemetry: Collect data from sensors in a remote environment and make the measurements available for use by other components of an IoT solution.
Telemetry Archiving: A device’s measurements are saved and made available for use in their original or processed form.

For example, historical telemetry-oriented solutions might obtain sensor data from on-premises devices and send that data using FTP, HTTP, or another mechanism to a self-managed server. The telemetry design in the IoT Atlas uses a managed, scalable, cloud-based IoT messaging protocol and protocol endpoint. For this reason, the original telemetry design benefits from a revision that includes a global, hyper-scale cloud.

Because this is day one for our publication of IoT designs, we would appreciate your help to make the IoT Atlas a rich and growing resource. Please read, review, comment, and take a moment to contribute your ideas and content for IoT designs, considerations, and examples. Together we can create maps that guide the industry toward successful IoT solutions.