Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced at AWS re:Invent 2016 that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., intends to support Amazon Web Services (AWS) Greengrass across a variety of portfolio solutions and will announce in the future specific Qualcomm platform support. AWS Greengrass is a new platform from Amazon that extends AWS IoT and Lambda for local execution on customers' own gateways and devices, with the same programming model as used in the cloud. Combining AWS Greengrass with Qualcomm Technologies portfolio solutions is expected to allow for the use of both local device and cloud-based storage, as well as the execution and messaging for critical IoT applications that cannot rely exclusively on the cloud, such as medical equipment, industrial machinery and building automation.
Enabling processing at the “edge” of an IoT solution may provide a breadth of benefits, from cost savings realized through reduced data signaling and cloud storage, to reduced latency for time-sensitive automated decision making, to compliance and privacy support through local data storage. In a gateway application, the integrated connectivity of Qualcomm Technologies portfolio solutions combined with AWS Greengrass, is expected to support a heterogeneous connection to the cloud. This is anticipated to allow multi-protocol edge nodes to communicate, even without IP connectivity, which brings new possibilities to commercial, industrial, medical and smart city solutions. The combination of Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors with AWS Greengrass will enable device manufacturers, system integrators interested in developing and commercializing IoT applications, and software solution providers to efficiently manage systems through a combination of cloud storage, execution, data caching and messaging.
“Qualcomm Technologies is driving new generations of smart connected edge devices such as ‘Gateways’ to enable edge processing for IoT implementations, especially in industrial, commercial and medical spaces,” said Jeffery Torrance, vice president, business development, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Qualcomm Technologies is excited to see AWS, a leader in IoT cloud offerings, launch AWS Greengrass, which is expected to further help customers realize the benefits of IoT edge processing and gateways. With AWS we intend to build a robust IoT ecosystem and enhance this IoT architecture with smart, connected edge devices as a central element, addressing key challenges such as privacy, security, latency, reliability, and data cost affordability in the growing diversity of IoT ecosystems.”
At AWS re:Invent 2016 Qualcomm Technologies will feature a live demonstration showcasing efficiencies that could be gained with AWS Greengrass in a facilities management use case employing the DragonBoard™ 410c by Arrow Electronics. Qualcomm Technologies worked with Solstice (www.solstice.com), an innovation and emerging technology firm and AWS IoT Competency Partner, to enable AWS Greengrass on DragonBoard 410c.