AWS IoT Core
AWS IoT Core is a managed cloud service within Amazon Web Services that enables users to connect IoT devices, such as wireless devices, sensors, and smart appliances, to the AWS cloud without managing servers.
Key points
- Supports devices and clients using four protocols:
- MQTT (Message Queuing and Telemetry Transport) — publish and subscribe messages; supports both MQTT v3.1.1 and MQTT 5.
- MQTT over WSS — publish and subscribe messages over secure WebSockets.
- HTTPS — publish messages only.
- LoRaWAN (Low-Power Long-Range Wide Area Network) — via AWS IoT Core for LoRaWAN, which replaces the need to develop and operate a separate LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS).
- Provides secure, bi-directional communication with devices, even when they aren’t currently connected.
- Consists of a device gateway and a message broker that connect and process messages and route them to other devices or AWS endpoints.
- Creates a persistent Device Shadow — a virtual version of a device — so other applications or devices can interact with it even while it is disconnected.
- Integrates with Amazon Cloudwatch, Amazon Cloudtrail, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Sage Maker, and Amazon QuickSight to build IoT applications.
- Rules Engine — evaluates incoming MQTT messages against SQL-based rules (a
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE ...syntax applied to the MQTT topic and payload) and routes matching messages to other AWS services for processing or storage, such as AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, Kinesis, Amazon SNS, or Amazon SQS. - Distinct from AWS Snowball, which physically collects, formats, and moves data from sites with no or intermittent connectivity rather than streaming it to the cloud directly.