How to Simplify IoT Development with Intel Edge Software Hub
When it comes to the Internet of Things, we’re talking about tapping on thousands of distributed devices operating simultaneously. In my previous article, I’ve further highlighted how IoT manageability is critical in defining the IoT development process. Thus, in this article, we’ll be taking a look at Intel Edge Software Hub, a platform developed by Intel for simplifying IoT and edge development!
What is Intel Edge Software Hub?
As an industry leading supplier of computing silicon, Intel recognises the rising demands of IoT, as well as their complex requirements and unique connectivity, security, and latency challenges. To consolidate infrastructures and simplify processes for software developers, the Intel Edge Software Hub is Intel’s answer to easing the large-scale IoT conundrum.
Intel Edge Software Hub is a one-stop platform and resource to help accelerate IoT development. It offers tools and readily-deployable software packages for scaling to massive IoT solutions. These resources are also extensively pretested and prevalidated to ensure both quality and reliability, and at the same time heavily complements Intel’s extensive hardware portfolio in an integrated IoT ecosystem.
Thus, you can think of the Intel Edge Software Hub as a springboard platform for helping IoT developers get started quickly!
In short, developers that choose the Intel Edge Software Hub can expect several key benefits.
- Reduce Development Costs – The Intel Edge Software Hub allows you to reference an extensive portfolio of examples and case studies, and easily configure your solutions to reduce capital and costs required by IoT development.
- Accelerate Time to Market – It also gives you access to ready-to-deploy, modular software packages that can be readily integrated into your IoT solution. This allows you to test, develop and deploy quicker.
- Increase Robustness and Scalability of IoT Solutions – Software from the Intel Edge Software Hub are further compatible with n a comprehensive ecosystem of Intel hardware to develop reliable massive IoT solutions.
What exactly is part of the Intel Edge Software Hub?
So far, we’ve shared broadly about the goals and benefits of the Intel Edge Software Hub. However, each IoT problem and solution is unique from the other – what types of resources are available and what exact use cases stand to benefit?
Edge Software Packages
The Intel Edge Software Hub has five packages that are built for specific edge use cases. These packages include contributions from Intel, open-source communities and other partners and have been pretested and prevalidated to enable high performance IoT out of the box!
Summarised in the table below, each of these packages offer comprehensive support for developing a variety of IoT applications, regardless of the field (retail, industry, logistics) or nature of the IoT implementation (concentrated or distributed).
Feel free to click on each of the package names to learn more about them!
| Package Name | Application |
|---|---|
| Edge Insights for Vision | Deploy optimised computer vision and related deep learning workloads for intelligent vision-based analysis and applications on the edge. |
| Edge Insights for Industrial (EII) | Analyse video and time-series data for industrial settings, with accelerated, concurrent workload capabilities on containerised analytics pipelines. |
| Converged Edge Insights | Aggregate data from connected devices with next-generation 5G networks and perform analysis on a chosen cloud framework or provider. |
| Edge Controls for Industrial (ECI) | Develop software-defined solutions for industrial control systems with advanced features such as real-time compute, standards-based connectivity, etc. |
| Edge Insights for Fleet (EIF) | Manage vehicle fleets and drivers in logistics through near real-time vision-based insights through analytics, edge-to-cloud communications and the like. |
In turn, these packages run on several other core software components that you may be keen to further read on individually, including:
- Intel Edge Software Coordinator (Intel ESC) – Interface for optimised containerised application deployment on the edge
- Intel Distribution of OpenVINO Toolkit – Cross-platform toolkit for deploying optimised machine learning inference runtimes
- Open Network Edge Services Software (OpenNESS) – Open-source, multi-access edge computing software toolkit
- EdgeX Foundry – Framework for data & communications between devices and applications
Use Cases & Reference Implementations
As mentioned, one of the Intel Edge Software Hub’s main offerings is an extensive library of example implementations. Each of these applications are highly specific to their use case, and so will be a tremendous advantage for developers working on a similar problem.
In each of these reference cases, you will find related documentation, a set of included modules, recommended hardware and preset, prevalidated configurations that you can download to help yourself jump right into development. Do note, however, that you will have to sign up for a free Intel Developer Zone account to access these resources!
Edge-to-Cloud Compatibility
Last but not least, the suite of software and accompanying hardware in the Intel Edge Software Hub provides extensive edge-to-cloud compatibility. This means that you can set up all your devices with the assurance of being able to use them with popular cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services’ AWS Green Grass and Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform for managing devices and collecting data!
Fill in the Final Piece of the Puzzle with Intel Edge Hardware
So far, we’ve seen how Intel is transforming IoT development with the Intel Edge Software Hub by consolidating compatibilities and resources for developers to work faster and more effectively. Naturally, software is only half the story in IoT. This is exactly why we’ve leveraged Intel’s hardware to create reServer – a compact and powerful server for both edge and cloud computing scenarios.
The reServer is designed around the 11th Gen Intel Core Tiger Lake UP3 processors, ranging from the base i3 SKU to the i7 GRE version for specialised real time computing. While reServer isn’t in the list of Intel Edge Software Hub recommended hardware, it can leverage most if not all of the advantages in the Intel ecosystem, such as Intel DL Boost, OpenVINO, Intel vPro, Intel TCC and much more.
Not only that, reServer expands on the features of the Tiger Lake processors with diverse network connectivity capabilities, including two high-speed 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet ports and hybrid connectivity with 5G LoRaWAN, BLE and WiFi – as well as integrated cooling and dual SATA III connectors for internally mounting 3.5” SATA hard disk drives. It’s truly a complete solution for powerful edge computing!
Product Features
- CPU: Latest 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i3 CPU running up to 4.10GHz (Base)
- Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics Xe G4 48EUs running up to 1.25 GHz (Base)
- Rich Peripherals: Dual 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 Type-A, USB 2.0 Type-A, HDMI and DP output
- Hybrid connectivity including 5G, LoRa, BLE and WiFi (Additional Modules required for 5G and LoRa)
- Dual SATA III 6.0 Gbps data connectors for 3.5” SATA hard disk drives with sufficient internal enclosure storage space
- M.2 B-Key/ M-Key/ E-Key for expandability with SSDs or 4G and 5G modules
- Compact server design, with an overall dimension of 124mm*132mm*233mm
- Quiet cooling fan with a large VC heat sink for excellent heat dissipation
- Easy to install, upgrade and maintain with ease of access to the internal components
Learn more about reServer on the Seeed Online Store!
Summary & More Resources
In this article, we’ve taken a look at the Intel Edge Software Hub and what it offers for IoT development. As the world accelerates its transformation to a new age of digitalisation and interconnectivity, Intel has most certainly taken a step in the right direction by helping developers streamline workflows and consolidate resources. Which aspect of the Intel Edge Software Hub are you most excited about?
Keen to learn more about the Intel ecosystem? We’ve got you covered!
- OpenVINO for Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake Processors
- A Look at the Intel vPro Platform for Edge Computing
- Intro to Time-Sensitive Networking for M2M Communication in IoT
- 6 Core IoT Technologies that You Must Know!
- What is an Edge Server? – Edge Computing Embedded Systems
About Author
