Panasonic today announced the release of a cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) toolkit, continuing the release of technology that began last March. This toolkit contains modular services that can be used to build highly scalable cloud-centric applications and is available either royalty-free for approved open-source projects or through licensing for commercial products.
In March of this year, Panasonic made available a complete gateway solution, royalty-free, through the OpenDOF Project (www.opendof.org) and announced plans to closely integrate with the AllSeen Alliance for device solutions. This toolkit completes the software suite for an end-to-end IoT platform, encompassing devices, gateways, and cloud components that can securely scale to support millions of devices.
“Panasonic’s commitment to open source is shown through the licensing terms of this technology,” said Panasonic Corporation of North America Chief Technology Officer Todd Rytting. “Companies cannot risk something as critical as their IoT infrastructure to proprietary, closed-source solutions. Through a combination of the code available through the AllSeen Alliance, the OpenDOF Project, and Panasonic’s cloud toolkit, this risk no longer needs to be a concern. We are confident that other companies in the IoT space will see the benefits of supporting the open-source community and build solutions based on open APIs.”
The toolkit gives the community a solution that is covered by patent pledges end-to-end and can operate from small IoT devices and sensors all the way through enterprise-class cloud providers including Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and IBM SoftLayer. The toolkit is already being used by Panasonic divisions in Asia, Japan, and the United States to gather data and provide control. For example, in the United States the toolkit is used to gather data about solar energy sites. In Asia the toolkit is used to control air conditioning systems.
“Combining the OpenDOF Project with this toolkit provides an end-to-end open-source solution that is both scalable and secure, elements which are critical to every IoT project,” said OpenDOF Project President Bryant Eastham. “We are proud to have our technology integrated into this toolkit.”
Panasonic will make this technology available as the Cloud Service Toolkit (CST). It will be made available through the Panasonic Salt Lake City Laboratory, part of Panasonic Research and Development Company America. More information about the toolkit can be found online at cst.pslcl.com.