Shortening the “Path” from IoT Devices to Cloud Servers: A New Project from TUMO Labs & Viciniti
The Internet, or, more specifically, IoT devices, depends on secure access to networks and clear identification. This has become more and more of an issue over the years as cloud service providers do not have physical access to IoT devices. Moreover, the entire process of recognition and authorization is done manually for each device, which is a difficult and time consuming endeavor when done in large quantities. So the idea behind the joint project between TUMO Labs and Viciniti revolved around solving this global issue, with students participating in the project creating an application that recognizes, validates and allows secure and complete access to IoT devices on a cloud server.
TUMO Labs’ partner in this project, the British company Viciniti (which has a branch in Armenia), provides infrastructure software for industrial organizations. Through their software, users gain access to simple, secure and reliable methods that allow them to deploy and manage applications and devices (gateway, sensors, servers) locally on-premises – or, in industry speak, at the edge of the network – rather than from a traditional cloud/data center typically located much farther away.
With this project, representatives from Viciniti expressed a desire to help young people launch themselves into a new career, giving them the skills demanded by the needs of the labor market and laying down a sturdy foundation for future collaborative efforts. “When we heard of the TUMO Labs initiative, we immediately wanted to participate, because this would be our opportunity to share our expertise and knowledge with students who WANT to learn,“ said Armine Saidi, CEO of Viciniti. CTO David Esteves echoed these thoughts. “It’s very special to help these students start a career with the skills that this work environment calls for, skills that are not typically taught at university.”
For many of the participants, some of the programming languages used in the project were completely new, but with the help of local and international workshop leaders, they quickly caught up before throwing themselves into the actual work of creating the application. According to student Haykanush Karapetyan, exploring and learning a new program was a major motivating factor that spurred her to sign up for the project. “Since I was already working with IoT systems, I wanted to deepen my knowledge, plus I had the opportunity to learn more about the Golang programming language.” There’s still time before the project comes to an end, but the students are already talking about all of the new knowledge they’ve gained to this point. “Before participating in this project, I was an iOS mobile developer, and now I can say that I’m a general mobile developer. In other words, because I increased my knowledge in this field, I was able to branch out and not limit myself to one platform,” said fellow student Diana Sargsyan.
In order to develop the mobile application, participants were divided into several groups, with each group tasked with tackling a different section, using React Native, Javascript, HTML, CSS and previously developed virtual machines (duplicates of IoT devices). “This mobile application will facilitate and speed up the work for Viciniti’s industrial client base. Now the user can authorize and adopt unregistered IoT devices seamlessly and at scale, cutting down a time-consuming, manually intensive, costly process,” said Haykanush.
Although the project is still a work in progress, the organizers are already seeing some encouraging results. “Most of the different parts of the project have already been developed and are working as expected. We’re now at the phase of putting everything back together and closing the loop. It’s exciting to see it all coming together,” explained David Esteves.
The creation of a mobile application that connects IoT devices to cloud servers is within our grasp. Next time, we’ll take a look at the final result.
IoT ամպային անվտանգություն
