Building A Serverless IoT Architecture

Few things instill more fear when I think of network architecture and security than thousands of tiny devices collecting and sending data across a network. The Internet of Things is a rising tide that will mean there will be between five and ten devices connected to the Internet for every many, woman and child on the planet before the decade is out. A recent experiment sought to discover whether a serverless architecture was worth exploring when deploying an IoT solution.

The experiment, summarised at IoT for All and covered in more detail in a white paper [PDF] describes how to create a simulated environment using various AWS services.

The experiment simulated 10,000 devices reporting small volumes of data every 15 minutes. Based on the services they deployed, this ran up a cost of about US$160 per month.

Although this was an experiment, it’s a good insight into one way to manage IoT devices. Given many devices come with limited management interfaces and poor, if any, security, it’s important to create an IoT environment that supports those needs.

Are you deploying a large-scale IoT project? How are you architecting it? It would be great to hear how other IT professionals are solving these challenges.