AWS-Iridium Network to Launch Satellite-Based IoT Products

The Internet of Things (IoT), originally expected to launch in 2013, was finally made available by Amazon Web Services (AWS), and satellite network provider Iridium in late January.
Iridium CloudConnect was announced for the first time in October 2018. The effort was described by the two companies as a bid for IoT capabilities to be extended to more markets, especially those without Internet access. The goal was to integrate AWS’ IoT platform with Iridium’s network of 66 satellites “crosslinked” around the globe. The integration would allow customers of both companies to create and deploy IoT apps, as well manage connected devices from anywhere in the world.
Iridium CloudConnect was officially launched this week, despite a launch window of sometime in 2019.
Bryan Hartin, Iridium’s executive vice president of marketing and sales, said Tuesday that there has been a lot of anticipation for this service. “We have created a private, direct connection between our gateway to AWS, making it redundant and secure. This is now a leading satellite cloud-based IoT service.
According to Iridium, the service allows customers to have faster engineering, development, and deployment times for their IoT solutions. Developers can benefit from the wider geographic coverage provided by satellite connectivity on the AWS side.
According to the product page, “Iridium CloudConnect allows devices to send and get messages through the AWS service without having to create a connecting service for the Iridium Short Burst Data Gateway (SBD). Gateway.” SBD is Iridium’s transceiver based technology to communicate status messages between devices.
Further information is available on the product page:
Data is transmitted via closed carrier networks and dedicated secure private links between AWS and Iridium. Iridium CloudConnect is setup using cross-account authentication and a simple script to set up infrastructure. Customers receive their SBD device data as a Simple Queue Service queue (SQS), in JavaScript Object Notation(JSON) format. Queues are stored in the customer’s AWS Virtual Private Cloud environment (VPC).
Contact us for more information about Iridium CloudConnect