Silicon Valley startup FogHorn Systems is collaborating with Google to simplify the deployment of industrial IoT (IIoT) applications.
The companies are integrating FogHorn’s Lightning edge analytics and machine learning platform with Google Cloud IoT Core, a managed service that allows for securely connecting, managing and ingesting data from globally dispersed devices.
The companies say that by combining their respective areas of expertise, they’re offering a fully integrated edge and cloud solution. FogHorn CTO Sastry Malladi describes it as an “edge to cloud and back” type of integration.
“We think it’s a very powerful combination at exactly the right time,” said Antony Passemard, head of IoT product management at Google Cloud, in a press release.
FogHorn works with Amazon, Microsoft Azure and others, but with Google it’s a bit different, according to Malladi: “What we’ve done with Google is a very seamless experience. Our philosophy has been we are cloud agnostic.” But if a customer doesn’t have an existing relationship with a cloud environment, this collaboration with Google gives them a chance to try it right out of the box.
Here's how the process works. Device data captured by Cloud IoT Core gets published to Cloud Pub/Sub for downstream analytics. Businesses can conduct ad hoc analysis using Google BigQuery, run advanced analytics and apply machine learning with Cloud Machine Learning Engine, or visualize IoT data results with reports and dashboards in Google Data Studio.
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FogHorn brings its Lightning product portfolio to the equation, embedding edge intelligence as close to the source of streaming sensor data as possible. FogHorn says its platform delivers “unprecedented” low latency for onsite data processing, real-time analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Based in Mountain View, California, FogHorn was founded around 2014 to focus on the IIoT and commercial IoT space; its top four verticals are manufacturing, oil & gas, transportation and smart cities/smart buildings. The company says it experienced strong growth in 2017, thanks in part to a $30 million series B funding round led by Intel Capital and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, with Honeywell Ventures joining in as a new investor.