PTC announced this week that VMware has joined the ThingWorx Ready program and will position the ThingWorx Internet of Things (IoT) platform along with its new IoT solutions to create new offerings as part of its IoT strategy.
VMware will combine its new IoT edge software, Liota, and device management capabilities with the ThingWorx rapid application enablement platform and analytics components, enabling a stronger combined offering that is scalable for companies that are building connected device management IoT solutions.
PTC plans to work with VMware to combine VMware’s proven history in device management capabilities with ThingWorx components to enable IoT solution builders to accelerate time to market and create business value. PTC and VMware will demonstrate new combined technology offerings at the VMworld 2016 conference.
VMware’s Liota (Little IoT Agent) us a vendor-neutral open source software development kit (SDK) for building secure IoT gateway data and control orchestration applications: where, when, and how to gather data from attached devices and transfer data to data center components. Liota also supports an application in receiving control signals from the data center components. The Liota Open Source SDK provides the libraries to develop applications that connect and orchestrate data and control flows across things, gateways and the cloud.
Gateways are an integral part of IoT infrastructure. They bridge, but also decouple, the physical IoT devices from the analytics and management components in data centers. This bridge allows data and control to move freely, correctly and securely from the device to the cloud or data center. Liota provides that next step, while also offering the flexibility developers want and need.
Liota offers a common way for enterprises to manage and leverage multiple gateway vendors within their IoT infrastructures. It has been generalized to allow, via modules, interaction with any data-center component, over any transport, and for any IoT gateway. It is easy-to-use and provides enterprise-quality modules for interacting with IoT Solutions, and has tested Liota with many solutions from both VMware and the community, such as VMware AirWatch, VMware vRealize Operations Manager and the open-source tool Graphite.
The ThingWorx Ready program allows participating companies to build or offer products or services compatible with ThingWorx to help accelerate IoT solution development. By leveraging an offering that combines solutions from PTC and VMware, IoT solution builders stand to accelerate product development and achieve a faster time to market.
PTC and VMware’s collaboration reinforces the importance of industry partners in the IoT era. PTC’s ThingWorx partner program brings together companies to collaboratively address the challenges and opportunities that the Internet of Things presents.
ThingWorx serves as the platform infrastructure and the data collection tool that enables companies to efficiently build solutions and offerings at scale that correspond to their industries and areas of expertise. ThingWorx allows for the rapid development of applications that correspond to connected solutions, enabling customers to reduce time to market and accelerate the path to business value.
“ThingWorx is designed to be a platform that other companies want to create new IoT solutions with, by either building on top of it or in concert with it,” said Rob Gremley, president, Technology Platform Group, PTC. “This collaboration with VMware is a perfect example of how a company with a proven history in a technology offering – in this case, device management – can bolster its capabilities in new ways by pairing them with ThingWorx.”
“VMware sees considerable potential in the IoT space, and it was important for us to align with partners that would both complement and enhance our proven enterprise device management offerings as we extend our technology to manage, monitor and secure IoT use cases from edge to cloud,” said Bask Iyer, chief information officer and general manager, IoT, VMware. “Rapid application enablement and analytics are important components of the new connected offerings that we will extend to our customers, and we are thrilled to collaborate with companies like PTC to deliver these capabilities at scale.”
