Kontron presents scalable IoT solutions powered by Microsoft Azure

Kontron was showcasing its new Microsoft Azure based solution publicly for the first time at SPS Drives last week in Nuremberg.

Especially suited for manufacturers and suppliers with a large install base Kontron’s new cloudbased solution minimises the efforts for an effective device lifecycle management through the seamless integration with Microsoft Azure services.

In tandem with its parent company S&T, which specialises in software development, Kontron supports customers in implementing efficient ways to manage a large number of distributed devices. Building on Microsoft Azure privacy and data protection Kontron’s solution offers a secure and compliant way for companies to benefit from the flexibility of scalable resources in an industrial environment including the implementation of analytics for Azure Machine Learning and Microsoft Cognitive Services.

Visitors to the Kontron booth at SPS were also able experience:

• A range of Microsoft Azure Certified for IoT products from Kontron ranging from Computer-on-Modules, Boards, Box PCs, Panel PCs, scalable servers for Edge, Fog Computing and cloud applications.
• Pre-integrated IoT solutions for industrial automation OEMs based on Microsoft Azure services:
  • Microsoft Azure IoT Edge (currently in public preview by Microsoft). Kontron uses Microsoft Azure IoT Edge preview and Microsoft’s OPC UA gateway components to connect devices to the cloud.
  • Microsoft Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service (currently in public preview by Microsoft).
• Device management, device and cloud application development, integration services and cloud operation for green field and brown field scenarios developed by Kontron together with S&T based on Microsoft Azure IoT services.

Kontron is also actively working on the integration of OPC UA along with the open Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard into production environments. Kontron is also one of the first users of the Microsoft Azure IoT Global Discovery Service (GDS), which provides the necessary infrastructure for the enterprise-wide administration of OPC UA Servers. All Kontron Microsoft Azure Certified for IoT products are available immediately.

“In a nutshell, this new range of products and solutions allows Kontron not only to offer new product lifecycle management solutions for industrial automation customers. It also includes OPC UA integration, cloud solutions, and powerful analytics, enabling deployments that will sustain continuous innovation”, said Laurent Remont, CTO of Kontron S&T AG. “The open standard OPC UA implementation provided by Microsoft as open source software, in combination with TSN offers an open and deterministic M2M communication framework for new smart manufacturing applications. The pre-integrated IoT solutions, based on Microsoft Azure, enable manufacturers and application developers to reduce time-to-market, lifecycle costs, interoperability issues and other risks.”

Jerry Lee, Director, Microsoft Azure IoT at Microsoft Corp. added: “Kontron services powered by Microsoft Azure IoT services enable customers to reduce their time-to-market with scalable, application ready solutions”.