Windows 10: Intelligent edge gets security and manageability of Windows 10 for IoT

Brink · Oct 2, 2019

The intelligent edge continues to expand the possibilities for businesses of all sizes, enabling them to gain new insights in real time and translate them into powerful business intelligence on site. With the growth of the intelligent edge comes increasing demand for connected devices, and this creates new opportunities for developers with expertise in security, cloud, systems engineering and hardware programming. But building IoT devices and connected systems also poses fresh challenges.

The IoT in Action event series is a great opportunity for you to learn to build new IoT experiences and drive rapid innovation in your business with the intelligent edge. Join Microsoft in Santa Clara on Oct. 10 to learn more.

How the intelligent edge is influencing needed developer skills

For embedded developers—those tasked with developing the actual devices and making them ”smart” by embedding sensors, microprocessors and CPUs into machines that may not have incorporated such technologies in the past—the major challenges lie in understanding connectivity. Embedded developers are seeing these devices be connected to the internet for the first time, and along the way, they’re being exposed to new worlds: the world of the cloud, and that of network infrastructures. They need to learn new skills so they can integrate the devices with IT networks and with cloud applications and solutions. They also need to understand and mitigate new network-born threats that these devices encounter.

On-premises application developers confront a different obstacle. They need to learn how to develop for new devices, creating applications that will run on or connect to machines, gadgets, and appliances that they may never have worked with before. Their applications must ingest the data from these devices and pass it to a cloud platform reliably and securely. These developers must cultivate the skills necessary to work within devices’ constraints. IoT devices often have very limited storage and compute, they may run on batteries, and they may have only intermittent connectivity. Such constraints require developers to learn new paradigms.

Microsoft products and services were developed with these needed capabilities and skills in mind. For instance, Windows for IoT supports Azure IoT Edge. This makes it easy and seamless to integrate the IoT Edge runtime, making it possible to move machine learning algorithms and other similarly complex computing functions from the cloud to edge devices. Windows for IoT also supports Windows Machine Learning and Windows Vision Skills, which allows you to run advanced AI algorithms developed in Azure on any Windows for IoT device.

How Windows 10 helps improve security and manageability for IoT devices

Security and device management are primary obstacles faced by enterprises seeking to implement IoT scenarios at scale, and developers are tasked with building the infrastructure to solve these problems. As a member of the Windows 10 family, Windows for IoT provides developers with a solid foundation for building innovative IoT solutions, incorporating the security, manageability and long-term support for which Windows has long been known. Microsoft has decades of experience building enterprise-grade systems and solutions, and it’s baked into every edition of Windows.

Windows for IoT includes editions that support devices from small and low-cost to powerful server-class. Windows 10 IoT Core is optimized for smaller devices with or without displays, while Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is designed for PC-class hardware. And Windows Server IoT 2019 can run on the most powerful server systems with very large storage. These operating systems share security features like Secure Boot, data encryption with Bit locker, and lockdown features to easily create dedicated devices.

Windows is the world’s most popular business operating system, with different versions running on billions of devices across the globe. Windows for IoT benefits from this universality, taking advantage of Microsoft’s experience with delivering software patches to millions of end users to secure an operating system at scale, as well as Microsoft’s experience provisioning and managing PCs on networks both large and small. These can include security patches which Microsoft has committed to offering for 10 years on select releases for Windows for IoT.

Device management is another area where Windows for IoT benefits from Microsoft’s experience. Windows for IoT has many management options ranging from the traditional tools used to manage Windows PCs, laptops and servers to newer methods that use cloud connections. The latter includes MDM systems and IoT-specific services like Azure IoT Hub, which connects and manages devices at scale. Azure IoT Hub also enables ”zero touch” provisioning, which streamlines the device enrollment and provision process of Windows for IoT devices.

Microsoft and Windows for IoT: a resource-rich ecosystem for developers

Joining the Microsoft IoT partner ecosystem and collaborating with a Microsoft partner can be an effective way to build the IoT solutions for your business. Working together with a partner, you won’t have to start from scratch when developing IoT projects and can rely on Microsoft reference architectures—as well as building blocks that your partner can supply. It’s a great idea to start with simple, off-the-shelf solutions and then customize as you learn more.

Start by joining Microsoft in Santa Clara for the upcoming IoT in Action event on Oct. 10. This event series is your opportunity to meet and connect with customers and partners across the IoT ecosystem. Whether you’re looking for specific skills and valuable insights from others’ IoT experiences, or you want to connect with those that are building or ready to implement repeatable, out-of-the-box IoT solutions – these events will help surface these opportunities for you.

For those with experience developing IoT solutions or devices, we will be hosting a hands-on lab experience the day before, on Oct. 9, in the Microsoft Sunnyvale office. Seating is extremely limited, so be sure to request a seat in the lab in advance.

Developers working with Azure IoT and Windows for IoT products, services and solutions can make use of abundant resources that Microsoft has created to help them develop new skills. Extensive documentation and training resources are available at the IoT School, and you can meet likeminded professionals and engage in ongoing discussion by joining the IoT Tech Community.

Prefer videos and webinars? Microsoft also has the IoT in Action webinar series that spotlights partner solutions and technology.
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Source: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdev...elligent-edge/

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Brink · Oct 2, 2019

Latest Windows IoT innovations for intelligent edge devices

At Microsoft, we’re focused on simplifying the Internet of Things (IoT) by making it easier to quickly build secure, smart devices that leverage the intelligent cloud while harnessing the full power of the intelligent edge, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics.

This week at Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany, we’re announcing new products and services for Windows IoT to help make this real for device manufacturers, solution developers, and customers.

Here are some highlights of what we’re unveiling at Embedded World.

Windows Server IoT 2019 is here

Windows 10 IoT provides a family of operating systems for device builders to develop solutions, from compact low-power devices to servers and everything in between. This includes Windows 10 IoT Core for small-footprint, smart-edge devices and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, which brings the full power of Windows to IoT devices.

Today, we’re pleased to announce the release of Windows Server IoT 2019 to securely handle the largest edge workloads with fixed-function, server-class devices. With full binary compatibility to Windows Server 2019, device manufacturers can build server-class IoT edge devices that enable high-capacity storage and compute scenarios and seamlessly scale between cloud and the edge. For example, imagine network videorecorders or high-end gateways, connecting thousands or even tens of thousands of sensors or devices, then storing, analyzing, and acting on these data streams in near-real-time with reduced latency and bandwidth consumption through utilizing the power of the intelligent edge.

Easier innovation at the edge

New capabilities for Windows 10 IoT are oriented to making developers’ jobs easier:

Azure IoT Edge for Windows—Developers can easily bring cloud workloads to the edge so that they can harness the full power of the Windows 10 IoT platform. They can scale IoT solutions across the cloud or edge with a managed service that delivers cloud intelligence locally by deploying and running AI, Azure services, and custom logic directly on cross-platform IoT devices. Customers benefit by deploying cloud applications and services on the edge, while ensuring they meet latency, bandwidth, and data privacy requirements. With these capabilities, it’s easy to see how devices get smarter.

Azure IoT Device Agent for Windows—Customers across industries, whether in an industrial setting or retail environment, are looking for ways to remotely provision and manage their IoT devices. Direct device access may not always be feasible when IoT devices are out in the field or on the factory floor. Microsoft Azure IoT Device Agent enables operators to configure, monitor, and manage their devices remotely from their Azure dashboard.

Robot Operating System for Windows IoT—Now developers can build and deploy commercial-grade Robot Operating System (ROS) solutions on Windows, making robots easier to develop, more aware of their surroundings, and safer to be around. Bringing ROS to Windows IoT enables rich AI and intelligent edge capabilities, including hardware-accelerated Windows machine learning, computer vision, Azure Cognitive Services, and turnkey connection to Azure IoT cloud services. In addition, customers can benefit from the enterprise security, manageability, and supportability Windows IoT brings to robotic and industrial systems.

“Microsoft has been a valued addition to the ROS-I Consortium,” says Matthew M. Robinson of the ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas. “Our membership has expressed significant interest in developments that will bring the advanced capabilities of ROS to industrial applications on the Windows platform and enable richer integration with other Microsoft tools that the Consortium membership have come to leverage.”

Extending device and silicon support

Microsoft continues to partner with silicon providers to ensure a broad range of hardware support for Windows 10 IoT.

Strengthening partnership with NXP
We are pleased to continue our partnership with NXP and are announcing a public preview for Windows 10 IoT Core with built-in Azure connectivity, running on the i.MX 8M and i.MX 8M Mini applications processors. The i.MX 8M family of applications processors will enable secure, power-optimized devices for the intelligent edge that give developers a choice of Linux or Windows IoT. Developers can quickly build new intelligent devices using the familiar and powerful Windows development environment and commercialize them using our powerful Azure IoT platform as well as Azure Cognitive Services. In addition, NXP has worked with Microsoft to enable Azure IoT Edge on Linux for the i.MX 8M and i.MX 8M Mini applications processors. Azure IoT Edge allows customers to deploy and manage containerized cloud workloads running on i.MX8 devices from their Azure IoT dashboard.

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Microsoft to bring Azure IoT Edge to our high-performance, multicore i.MX 8M applications processors platform,” says Geoff Lees, senior vice president of microcontrollers at NXP. “With this addition, NXP customers will have access to industry-leading edge computing solutions, from i.MX 6 to i.MX 7 and i.MX 8/8M across Windows 10 IoT Core and Linux operating systems, for advanced industrial and IoT applications, harnessing the full power of Azure in their intelligent edge products.”

Qualcomm Snapdragon support for always-on, always-connected IoT devices
Our partnership with Qualcomm and board providers enables developers to harness the power of the Snapdragon family of processors with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. Customers gain always-on connectivity and the power management capabilities of Snapdragon, with the full power of Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

“The combination of Qualcomm Technologies’ cutting-edge platforms and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise can enable always-connected, always-on intelligent edge devices to help companies of all sizes and industries deliver on the promise of IoT. We’re excited to support the work of companies like USI, with its SOM 850, and Thundercomm, with its TurboX AI Kit, as they bring their products to commercialization,” said Jeffery Torrance, vice president, business development, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Customers from across industries are simplifying digital transformation with Windows IoT

Building and deploying IoT solutions can be complex, expensive, and time-consuming. Customers and partners are looking for ways to take connected devices to market fast, capitalize on smart capabilities that drive new applications and services, and ensure device security. Action Point, an IT services company headquartered in Ireland, used Windows 10 IoT Enterprise to create a predictive maintenance solution for its manufacturing customers called IoT-PREDICT. The Action Point solution uses AI, machine learning, and data analytics to identify and resolve potential issues. Manufacturers benefit by reducing downtime and costs and increasing efficiency.

“Because IoT-PREDICT is built on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, it’s very easy for customers to deploy,” says John Savage, ActionPoint co-founder and chief technology officer. “They’re essentially just installing a Windows 10 IoT device on their network, with the same familiar management and security framework they already use to manage their other Windows-based devices.”

IDEX Fire and Safety provides equipment that helps firefighters and emergency medical technicians perform lifesaving duties. The company needed to ensure that equipment would always be available, without risk of malfunctioning or going offline. IDEX Fire and Safety chose Windows 10 IoT Core and the Microsoft Azure Government cloud to develop the Captium platform to connect all in-truck systems. The IoT solution provides telemetry, health reporting, and predictive maintenance that keeps emergency vehicles operationally ready 24×7, 365 days a year.

“Windows IoT Core enabled us to leverage our existing skills and provides the security and trust we needed to develop a demanding application that helps ensure first responders’ equipment is always operationally ready,” says Jeffrey Zook, marketing manager, IDEX Fire and Safety. “Windows IoT Core, combined with Azure, provided IDEX with the end-to-end platform to build our solution.”

Learn more about how Windows IoT is powering what’s next, securely

A fundamental challenge of digital transformation is protecting IoT devices from vulnerabilities. At Embedded World, we’re not only introducing new Windows 10 IoT products and services—we’re also showcasing how Microsoft stands behind your IoT devices throughout their lifespans, including 10-year support for security updates via the Windows Long-Term Servicing Channel.

Come and see real-world Windows IoT-based solutions—robotics, securely connected factories, remote field service and predictive maintenance, among others—on display at the Microsoft booth #422 in Hall 4 at Embedded World. We’d love to talk about the possibilities our IoT platform can bring to your company.

Learn more about Windows 10 IoT.
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Source: Microsoft announces latest Windows IoT innovations for intelligent edge devices at Embedded World | Windows Experience Blog

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Brink · Oct 2, 2019

Evolution of Windows IoT: The foundation for your intelligent edge

It began more than 20 years ago, in the days before sensors monitored soil health, before smart shelves managed product levels, before artificial intelligence and IoT-enabled cameras reduced violent crime.

Before the term “Internet of Things” had been coined, Microsoft Windows was there—but not just on our PCs. It was quietly running on the smallest, embedded devices—the precursors to the intelligent, connected devices of today.

In fact, Windows IoT is more than two decades in the making, and now, Windows IoT is helping businesses of all sizes achieve digital transformation and delight customers with secure, modern experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds.

Read on to discover how Windows IoT has evolved into one of the most trusted IoT platforms—and learn about the groundbreaking capabilities that are coming soon.

Windows IoT Core: a history of innovation

Since the 1990s, we’ve been innovating our popular Windows OS to meet the needs of device manufacturers, providing a familiar, cost-effective, and secure platform. We were already optimizing Windows for small, single-purpose embedded devices ranging from toys to telephones through our Windows CE and Windows NT Embedded products. Over the years, we have continued to build on this groundbreaking work.

Back when Windows IoT Core was introduced, it was the first time you could run the Windows OS on tiny computers, such as the Raspberry Pi. Designed for device makers, our initial focus was on development kits and building a community of Windows IoT developers. From there, we expanded to meet the needs of commercial customers who wanted long-term support, including a high-quality development environment.

Today, Windows 10 IoT Core is a mature product that enables manufacturers to go to market quickly with small-footprint devices that are secure, low cost, and built for the intelligent edge. Windows IoT Core provides a royalty-free OS for prototyping, developing and testing IoT devices.

Providing security and maintenance for a multitude of devices in the field can be extremely challenging, so one of the biggest additions we’ve made recently is Windows 10 IoT Core Services. Windows 10 IoT Core Services ensures long-term OS support and services for managing device updates and device health. Benefits include reduced operating costs with over-the air-updates for OS, apps, and drivers—plus 10 years of OS system support and enhanced security.

Additionally, with the release of Windows 10 IoT Core on NXP i.MX 6, 7 and now 8M series of application processors, we have support for industrial grade silicon. Meanwhile, we continue to work behind the scenes on products that haven’t been announced yet.

The evolution of Windows IoT Enterprise

For customers wanting the full power of Windows 10, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise provides a locked down, full version of Windows 10 that delivers enterprise manageability and security to IoT solutions across multiple industries. It shares all the benefits of the worldwide Windows ecosystem, including the same familiar application compatibility, development and management tools as client PCs and laptops.

Licensed for fixed-purpose, smart devices, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise features advanced capabilities that make it much easier to configure and lock down mission critical devices. This means that developers can spend more time creating outstanding solutions, without worrying about the nuts and bolts.

Like Windows 10 IoT Core Services, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise includes long-term support. With the critical nature of security, being able to get security updates over the course of ten years without having significant changes in the OS is of enormous value.

Both Windows 10 IoT Core and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise offer easy integration with the Microsoft Azure platform, simplifying scale and device management, as well as the implementation of advanced features like hardware-assisted machine learning inferencing and containers.

Bringing it all together with Azure IoT Edge

Azure IoT Edge extends cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices, providing a secure and easy way for developers to move cloud and custom workloads to the edge and tap the power of Windows 10 IoT. Azure IoT Edge enables seamless deployment of AI and advanced analytics capabilities, and the Azure IoT Device Agent for Windows makes it easy for operators to remotely configure, update and monitor edge devices.

IoT Edge modules, implemented as Docker-compatible containers, enables management of device updates and the deployment of business logic at the edge. Multiple modules can be configured to communicate with each other, and custom modules can be developed to provide insights offline and at the edge. Again, 10 years of ongoing support, security and patch management add to the ROI as well as customer confidence.

The future of Windows IoT

In late February, we announced the availability of Windows Server IoT 2019, which can securely handle the largest edge computing workloads. Windows Server IoT 2019 brings the power of high-availability and high-performance storage and networking to the edge, addressing latency and connectivity requirements and enabling customers to maintain data on-premises while securely storing and analyzing large amounts of data.

Additionally, we’ve got some thrilling product advancements lined up over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, focusing on end-to-end security, simplicity and cost-effectiveness. We are working with OEMs to bring existing devices onto a new, modern OS—and helping them connect to the cloud. Microsoft is making substantial investments in cloud connectivity and using the power of Windows to accelerate our customers’ journeys to the cloud and the intelligent edge.

From a developer perspective, we are focused on efficiency and making Windows a great place for machine learning through innovations like AI at the edgeWinML allows developers to harness the capabilities of any Windows 10 device to use pre-trained machine learning models—both custom and off-the-shelf—making it immensely powerful and ideally suited to intelligent edge devices. WinML accelerates the evaluation of deep learning models on Direct X12-capable devices. It also evaluates on local hardware, enabling low latency and high performance for quick results.

A great example of the benefits WinML brings to IoT solutions is IoT-PREDICT. This predictive maintenance solution from ActionPoint runs on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise and uses machine learning, as well as data analytics and advanced capabilities, to help manufacturers reduce equipment downtime, save money and drive operational efficiency.

Windows Embedded and now Windows IoT have provided device builders and developers innovative products that offer security, simplicity and flexibility, backed-up with commercial grade support, including 10 years of support with our Long Term Servicing Channel. Windows IoT is accelerating digital transformation and enabling customers to build secure, connected products and modern experiences that delight customers.

We’re proud of how we have helped reshape the business landscape through IoT and the intelligent edge. And we’re thrilled about the road ahead. Stay tuned to see how we continue to lead global IoT innovation.

Meanwhile, be sure to tune into the IoT in Action on-demand webinar, Windows IoT: Business Transformation, to discover how Windows 10 IoT can help you get up and running quickly. You’ll learn how, with a platform that spans cloud, OS and devices, Microsoft IoT technology is uniquely positioned to simplify the IoT journey.

You can also watch the Windows IoT in Manufacturing webinar to hear how our partners are empowering device manufacturers to build secure, connected enterprise and consumer devices with Windows 10 IoT. Watch and discover how you can create trusted, connected solutions that improve business and customer experiences – regardless of company size, technical expertise, budget, or industry.
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Source: Evolution of Windows IoT: The foundation for your intelligent edge | Windows Experience Blog

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Brink · Oct 2, 2019

Do more at the intelligent edge with Windows 10 IoT

Microsoft announces the Windows AI Platform with Windows 10 IoT, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure IoT Edge to accelerate the intelligent edge.

In the world of connected things, devices are getting more powerful. Advances in silicon, memory, and cloud technologies including machine learning and artificial intelligence are enabling devices to do more at the edge. These advances will expand use cases in manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and many other industries where an intelligent edge will unlock the power of the intelligent cloud in new ways.
Today, we are excited to announce a Windows AI Platform-enabled solution to put this power in the hands of every developer. In the next update to Windows 10, the Windows AI Platform with Azure Machine Learning together with Azure IoT Edge will bring hardware-accelerated machine learning model evaluation on the edge. By using instruction set optimizations on modern CPUs, hardware acceleration on GPUs that support DirectX 12, and a driver model for purpose-built AI processors in the future, the Windows AI Platform will deliver performance and efficiency on the broadest range of form factors.
At Microsoft Build 2018, we are showcasing this through a powerful demonstration. Imagine a production line in a steel factory equipped with cameras that can capture every square inch of steel passing through the line. Using traditional image processing techniques, it’s difficult to process and analyze this information, derive insights, and take actions in a timely and affordable manner. Using the Windows AI Platform available on every Windows 10 device, the machine learning model on the device will process the images at the edge and can detect anomalies on the steel surface instantaneously. With Azure IoT Edge, the device can be configured to send alerts or take a corrective action. With Azure Machine Learning, the ML model will be retrained and redeployed easily and quickly across devices. Such a deployment will enable a truly intelligent edge with hardware that is already available in market on a Windows 10 device with Direct X12 GPU.

Windows AI Platform powering edge solution at a steel factory.

At EmbeddedWorld2018, Microsoft announced 10 years of security updates and an expanded offering of long-life silicon for Windows 10 IoT Core. In close collaboration with NXP, we have begun a private preview of Windows 10 IoT Core on NXP i.MX 6 and i.MX 7 processors. Today, we are announcing that Microsoft and NXP will release commercial support for IoT Core with i.MX6 and i.MX7 with the next release of IoT Core.

Windows 10 IoT platform continues to evolve with feature investments including the Windows AI Platform, expanded silicon offerings, and long-term support commitment. We are excited about the possibilities and want to see what you do with this. To learn more about developing with Windows 10 IoT, enroll in our Early Adopter Program at L: EEAPIOTPartner@microsoft.com.
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Source: Do more at the intelligent edge with Windows 10 IoT - Windows Experience Blog

See also: Unlocking the IoT promise - from the intelligent cloud to the intelligent edge - Internet of Things

Windows 10: Intelligent edge gets security and manageability of Windows 10 for IoT

Intelligent edge gets security and manageability of Windows 10 for IoT

Intelligent edge gets security and manageability of Windows 10 for IoT

Intelligent edge gets security and manageability of Windows 10 for IoT

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