Using Losant Edge Compute and Azure IoT Edge as Your Complete Edge Deployment Solution

  • March 25, 2021
  • imc

Written by BRANDON CANNADAY

Losant Edge Compute and Azure IoT Edge provide complementary services that work together to deliver a comprehensive edge computing software technology stack. Losant provides the tools to implement and remotely deploy edge intelligence through our drag-and-drop Edge Workflows and Azure provides the tools to remotely deploy and manage the Edge Agent’s underlying Docker container.

To make it as easy as possible to use these services together, Losant Edge Compute is now available in the Azure Marketplace as an IoT Edge Module. Please read our Installation Using Azure IoT Edge documentation page for step-bystep instructions.

Industrial Equipment Monitoring with Losant Edge Compute and Azure IoT Edge

One of the primary use cases for Losant Edge Compute is for remotely monitoring fielded industrial equipment. This monitoring is usually provided by the OEM as an IoT service to accompany the equipment they sell to customers. Monitoring fielded equipment, potentially in the hands of thousands of different customers, presents unique edge computing challenges that Losant and Azure come together to solve.

In many cases the OEM will retrofit their equipment with an inexpensive gateway. This gateway is connecting to the equipment’s existing controller for the source of telemetry and health data. The gateway then securely transmits that data to Losant’s Enterprise IoT Platform over a cellular, WiFi, or Ethernet connection. The owner of that equipment (i.e. the OEM’s customer) can then view data, alerts, and service information for the equipment they own.

To enable this service, there are two fundamental edge computing requirements. The first, which is provided by Losant, is an Edge Workflow that reads data from the equipment’s controller and performs any required local processing. The second, which is provided by Azure, is managing the container running the underlying Losant Edge Agent. It’s important that both your edge intelligence (Losant Edge Workflows) and edge runtime (Losant Edge Agent) can be remotely updated at any time. These updates could include security fixes, bug fixes, or new functionality for your customers.

If you’d like to receive a live demo of Losant and Azure working together, please contact us and we’ll be in touch.


About BRANDON CANNADAY:

Brandon is passionate about developer tools and user experience. He has over 15 years of enterprise software experience in chemical detection, telecommunications, cloud services, and The Internet of Things.