For businesses around the world, connecting existing assets and devices to the cloud is a first step towards realizing the benefits of the industrial Internet of Things. Yet while the opportunity for operational efficiencies and productivity improvements are straightforward, the logistics of connecting legacy industrial devices and systems are often not as easy to tackle. For starters, industrial equipment is often built to last decades, and older devices tend not to be cloud aware. They also don’t have the capability perform the encryption necessary to securely traverse the internet, and in many cases they are not even TCP/IP enabled.

We’re working with industry leaders to make connecting legacy devices simpler with the Azure IoT Gateway SDK. ProSoft, a leader at integrating disparate devices into a unified system, is one company that is seamlessly connecting existing industrial devices into IoT solutions. The ProSoft PLX gateway communicates directly with Azure IoT Hub through the Azure IoT Gateway SDK in a highly secure manner which scales with the millions of devices a customer may desire to connect.

Using gateways like ProSoft PLX, not only can multiple devices be connected to the cloud in minutes, but they can also become a true IoT solution by leveraging the remote monitoring capabilities of the Azure IoT Suite. This preconfigured solution allows businesses to easily monitor, analyze, report on, and create alarms based on the data previously un-connectable devices send to the cloud. These devices can also receive updates from the cloud, for example, to change configuration or settings. Working together, ProSoft and Microsoft Azure IoT are helping to lay the groundwork required to unlock the value of data produced in industrial systems.





Figure 1 – Diagram showing how existing business assets can be connected to the Remote Monitoring Preconfigured Solution using a ProSoft PLX running the Azure IoT Gateway SDK.

Connecting existing devices to cloud solutions is the first step towards realizing the potential of the Internet of Your Things. Soon Microsoft and ProSoft will show even more advanced scenarios like edge analytics and responding to device events in real time. For now, you can learn more about what IoT can do for your business at www.internetofyourthings.com and hardware to power your IoT solution at www.prosoft-technology.com.