Soracom IoT expands service to support Google Cloud Platform
Written by: Jake Martin
Published: June 15, 2017
On May 16, 2017, Google released the Google Cloud IoT Core service for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) into beta, allowing secure connection, central management, and data analytics for globally distributed devices. Today we are happy to announce expanded services that support this exciting new cloud offering.
Since 2015, the SORACOM IoT platform has enabled secure, affordable, easy-to-use connectivity for IoT/M2M. SORACOM users can implement IoT systems with no minimum device count or long-term commitments and enjoy full access to the Web console and API for management, secure data transmission, and advanced cloud capability, including on-the-fly translation of device data for leading cloud platforms like AWS and Microsoft Azure.
The two new features released today are designed to let Google Cloud Platform users take advantage of SORACOM connectivity to easily and securely communicate between IoT devices and GCP.
Soracom Beam + Google Cloud IoT Core
Connection to Google Cloud IoT Core uses MQTT (MQ Telemetry Transport), a standard communication protocol used for IoT, but it is based on TLS (Transport Layer Security). Encryption to secure the communication path is indispensible, which makes it necessary to authenticate each access using JWT (JSON Web Token).
SORACOM Beam lets you offload CPU cycles and certificate management from devices to the cloud without impacting communication security.
If authentication information is associated with a SIM
- SORACOM generates/signs JWT
- Can be connected to GCP with no device-side provisioning required
Bi-directional data communication with applications on GCP
- Send commands and change settings
Soracom Funnel + Google Cloud Pub/Sub
GCP’s asynchronous and scalable messaging service, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, offers a very useful data entryway for GCP services.
To deliver data from a large number of IoT devices to GCP, the SORACOM Funnel cloud resource adapter now supports direct connection with Google Cloud Pub/Sub.
Data can be sent to GCP with a simple protocol, making GCP cooperation possible even with highly constrained devices devices in the field.
Which to use?
If you just need to snarf data from IoT devices, SORACOM Funnel offers a very simple solution with minimal configuration required.
If you need two-way communication between GCP and devices, you’ll want to use SORACOM Beam. (But don’t worry, that’s pretty simple too.)
With support in place for AWS, Microsoft Azure, and now Google Cloud Platform, we’re looking forward to adding more cloud integrations and more features throughout 2017. We take user input very seriously, so if you have any functional requests, or if you need support for new services, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
