Las Vegas-based Terbine has announced the open availability of a universal API suite for the IoT that organisations can use to submit, search, discover, retrieve and monetise IoT data.
 
It is compatible with 18 open source languages and systems.
 
To manage the data generated and used by machines, analytics packages and AI-based systems, the API can interface open source and proprietary software into the world of IoT. The API removes obstacles and friction points by enabling a metadata layer that fully describes data sources and elements needed to enable data sharing, monetisation and broader use within and across sectors.
 
“The IoT has been growing steadily in both the public and commercial realms, with the data primarily being sequestered in silos,” said David Knight, Terbine founder and CEO. “Making it accessible to third party applications has represented a range of challenges, which we intend to minimise via the introduction of a universal access method.”
 
Typically, accessing IoT data from government sources, corporations and academia has required specific investigation, learning curves and customised programming. The API provides a single suite that connects commonly used programmatic interfaces, analytics software packages and device control formats, all via the one standard.
 
Terbine provides direct access, for searching, submitting and retrieving IoT data to widely used services including Amazon S3, Apache Pulsar, HLA, HTTP, JMS, Kafka, Microsoft Power BI, MQTT, Python, Rabbit MQ, SFTP, Tableau, ThingsBoard, WSO2 and XMPP.
 
The API conforms to the IoT Metadata specification, which enables rich search, discovery, access control and monetisation of data feeds. On Terbine’s cloud-based platform, the API lets programmers write one interface to access more than 30,000 data feeds sourced from hundreds of public agencies around the world, while normalising the differences between continuously fed and archival data.
 
The API is being applied within the insurance industry, academic research and government agencies. Many others in autonomous vehicle development, supply chain, logistics, financial services and more will be able to remove obstacles and speed up development of systems reliant on the exchange of IoT data.
 
Security features and data access policies can be controlled via the Terbine API suite, along with the ability to monetise data feeds.