Latin America. Telefónica has announced an agreement with Microsoft Azure IoT that includes three main areas of collaboration: product integration, commercialization and joint innovation.
While the use of the public cloud is increasingly common for IoT solutions, companies often have difficulties when connecting their devices to develop IoT services, difficulties such as the unreliability of services and the traceability of data.
There is also a requirement to have unique credentials on the device that cause the need for firmware customization and make the solution more expensive, in addition to greater data and battery consumption due to communications being encrypted, something for which not all IoT devices are prepared.
"By integrating Telefónica's IoT connectivity platform with Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, Telefónica will offer its customers a global IoT Managed Connectivity solution thanks to which they can, in a simple, secure and reliable way, connect their devices to Azure Hub IoT. The integration aims to solve customer problems when transmitting data from the device to the cloud, taking advantage of the authentication and identity process already offered by the network and thus enable the complete automation of the configuration and provisioning of the device (zero-touch provisioning). In this way, the complexity of the device and the required customization will be reduced," explained Vicente Muñoz, Chief IoT Officer of Telefónica.
Telefónica and Microsoft have jointly developed a pre-configured IoT solution, focusing on the integration of Telefónica Managed Connectivity data into the Azure IoT Suite remote monitoring solution.
Telefónica will also integrate its IoT connectivity platform APIs with Azure IoT Device Twins, to provide a single interface aimed at the development of standard software and components in Microsoft Azure. This will allow an improvement in analytical as well as diagnostic capabilities.
Both companies will also collaborate in the development of new market strategies with a focus on marketplaces and innovation projects related to new IoT connectivities, IoT security and the always complex identity solutions of the devices. This product integration will lead to a better joint offer for Telefónica and Microsoft customers.
