Google to shut IoT Core services next year

  • August 18, 2022
  • Steve Rogerson

Google Cloud tried to announce quietly this week that it was closing its IoT Core service in a year’s time.

And Texas-based IoT platform and edge AI company ClearBlade was first off the mark with a SaaS offering that lets enterprises migrate.

Google says it will be closing IoT Core on August 16, 2023. In an email to its customers, it said: “Your current IoT Core services will remain available through August 15, 2023. Start your migration to alternatives.”

The email said the IoT Core service would be discontinued on August 16, 2023, at which point access to the IoT Core device manager APIs would no longer be available.

“As of that date, devices will be unable to connect to the Google Cloud IoT Core MQTT and HTTP bridges and existing connections will be shut down,” it said. “Your current IoT Core services will remain available through August 15, 2023, unless you terminate your usage of IoT Core at an earlier date.”

The email recommended that users take action early to migrate from IoT Core to an alternative service.

“As an initial step, connect with your Google Cloud account manager if you have questions about your migration plans,” it said. “Your account manager can also help you learn more about Google Cloud partners that offer alternative IoT technology or implementation services that meet your business requirements.”

Google started the managed service in 2017 and made it generally available a year later.

The ClearBlade IoT Core provides standard IoT cloud service capabilities, scaling and hardened security for enterprises. For existing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) IoT Core users, it provides a low-effort, one-click migration process and pricing consistent with GCP’s current offering.

The ClearBlade IoT Core is a fully managed service to connect, manage and ingest data securely from globally distributed devices including features for: device registry and management; messaging via a scalable and proven MQTT broker; simple mapping of topics to GCP PubSub; and ease of enterprise integrations via Rest APIs.

Along with a feature set, IoT Core can upgrade to a private instance of ClearBlade’s IoT Enterprise product. ClearBlade’s IoT platform provides a code engine that does inline stream processing, integrates directly with enterprise software, offers built-in data-as-a-service (DaaS) moving device information into internal and external data stores, and an ONNX-based AI runtime for performing artificial intelligence and predictive maintenance.

IoT Enterprise users can also deploy their entire IoT application to the edge using edge orchestration and the ClearBlade IoT edge platform to take their processing and visualisations out of the cloud and into the field. For businesses and organisations ready to move faster, it provides a no-code intelligent assets application already in use by Fortune 500 companies around the world to track, monitor and control their assets.

“ClearBlade has been in use and trusted by enterprises long before the hyperscalers released their IoT offerings,” said ClearBlade CEO Eric Simone. “Companies need software that gives them scalability, flexibility and immediate RoI, so they rely on ClearBlade. Our team has real-world enterprise experience both in the field and at scale. ClearBlade welcomes comparisons to any and all IoT and edge software providers. We are that confident in our software offerings.”

With the announcement of GCP IoT Core deprecation, ClearBlade is ready to serve those users as a GCP approved independent software vendor and migration service integrator. ClearBlade’s IoT Core has been reviewed and approved by Google as a Google IoT Core replacement offering. In contrast to complex custom builds, it provides a one-click process for a full migration of all server-side assets including device records, authentication certificates and PubSub topic mappings.

“IoT developers already have their plates full with building new features to spend time building a new solution to replace what is already working,” said Aaron Allsbrook, ClearBlade CTO. “ClearBlade IoT Core provides the exact capabilities in-house today with the smallest possible impact to existing working systems.”

End users will experience no changes in the device authentication. Pricing will remain unchanged with a tiered price structure by data transmitted. Finally, ClearBlade’s IoT Core provides a simple familiar user interface removing business process migration friction.

“ClearBlade running on GCP was the perfect choice for our rapidly growing business,” said Jodd Readick, CTO at Opti-Harvest. “Opti-Harvest helps farmers increase crop yields, improve water-use efficiency and mitigate adverse environmental impacts. We needed a flexible platform that was proven at scale to connect to our IoT devices in the field as well as to integrate a wide range of our partner’s data. We love the flexibility of the platform and how easy it is to add new device types. After working with their exceptionally solid team for a year, we have confidence they can quickly handle whatever we throw at them. We didn’t have time to waste building with unproven technology, so we demanded an immediate RoI. ClearBlade provided that.”

ClearBlade released its IoT platform in 2014 and its edge platform in 2016.