AWS re:Invent 2020: AWS Consolidates Its Claim in the Industrial IoT Analytics Market

As a part of the annual re:Invent conference, it was expected that Amazon Web Services (AWS) would roll out several new features, system updates, and new services. AWS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andy Jassy, during his keynote at AWS re:Invent, announced a number of exciting updates for various industries, including the Internet of Things (IoT). The name of the game this year is Machine Learning (ML), data handling, and data accessibility.

What are the particularly interesting IoT analytics announcements? re:Invent features many industrial partners and clients of AWS, alongside significant ML and Machine Vision (MV) updates for the core four new Industrial IoT (IIoT) services. This week, it is expected that AWS will announce a further improvement to its Marketplace, which features third-party IoT partners and service providers. AWS is actively challenging and calling out Microsoft Azure by consolidating and solidifying its claim to the IIoT.

re:Invent 2020 is an online event (no surprise there) and is spread over a few weeks, with more than 30 session to come, which will add more news to the IoT domain.

AWS has introduced a number of ML and MV updates through the keynote addresses; however, below is a closer look at the relevant IIoT analytics features:

• Amazon Lookout for Equipment: Amazon Lookout is an Application Programming Interface (API)-based ML service that enables companies to detect anomalies in the functionality of their industrial equipment. Customers can then efficiently perform ML inference to detect abnormal behavior of the equipment. The output can be further integrated into existing systems/software or moved to the AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor to visualize real-time results, set up an alert system, and analyze trends for anomaly detections.
• Amazon Lookout for Vision: This is another new ML service that enables enterprises to find visual defects in industrial products accurately and at scale. CEO Jassy announced that AWS’ computer vision models can be trained to detect damage, evaluate color, identify missing components, and implement other MV applications by uploading fewer than 30 images.
• Amazon Monitron: This is an end-to-end monitoring system for industrial assets, enabling enterprises to implement predictive maintenance and reduce unplanned downtime by monitoring sensors, gateways devices, and ML deployments. One of the most sizable benefits of the service is the simplicity of its deployment, as the Monitron app enables a business to begin its monitoring journey within minutes.

It has been a longstanding struggle for enterprises to handle, collect, and analyze their industrial data, let alone monetize it. Data scientists spend 70% to 80% of their time on data handling, meaning that data preparation is hard. AWS has come up with solutions that enable ML and MV at scale to be easier and more accessible to those who are not data scientists. In addition to IIoT analytics, AWS announced enhancements to AWS SageMaker (Feature Store, Pipeline, and Data Wrangler), alongside the industrial offering explained above, solidifying AWS’s goal of becoming a leader in IIoT analytics.

Currently, AWS has partnered with IIoT analytics ML firms, such as Seeq and DataRobot, to bring added value to enterprises, but also to become an integral part of the AWS business model and expansion. Bringing a broader audience to third-party solutions within its cloud AWS ensures the rapid delivery of innovation that drives industrial resilience and digitalization for manufacturing. Subsequently, the ability to present enterprises with a wide range of solutions and applications enables AWS to be a leader in the industrial cloud, giving customers a choice and avoiding vendor lock-in with an industrial platform versus adopting a hybrid cloud to satisfy their analytics needs and simplify data strategies.

However, it is fair to suggest that the AWS 2020 announcement is not as substantial on the technology front compared to 2019’s announcements (AWS AI services, Amazon CodeGuru, AWS Outposts, and Local Zones). However, the new updates really help AWS win over the growing ML market and close the gap with Azure on IIoT. The most exciting announcement will come later in the week when AWS officially announces the changes and updates to Marketplace policies and its third-party partnerships.