Case study – a multi-cloud architecture supporting Volkswagen’s IoT operations– Architecting Complex, Holistic IoT Environments

Volkswagen is a German multinational automotive manufacturing company. It is one of the world’s largest automakers and is known for producing some of the most popular car models in the world, including the Volkswagen Golf and the Volkswagen Beetle.

Volkswagen wanted to utilize IoT technology to improve its manufacturing processes and create more efficient supply chains. However, implementing IoT at such a large scale requires significant cloud computing power and storage capacity. Volkswagen needed a solution that could handle the large amounts of data generated by IoT devices and provide real-time insights.

Volkswagen opted for a multi-cloud approach to support its IoT initiatives. It partnered with several cloud providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). By utilizing multiple cloud platforms, Volkswagen was able to distribute its workloads across different cloud providers, avoiding any potential downtime or performance issues.

This multi-cloud architecture also allowed Volkswagen to take advantage of the unique features and services offered by each cloud provider. For example, Volkswagen used AWS IoT Core to connect and manage its IoT devices, Azure IoT Hub for device management and data ingestion, and GCP for real-time analytics.

To ensure seamless integration and communication between the different cloud providers, Volkswagen used Kubernetes, an open source container orchestration platform. Kubernetes allowed Volkswagen to easily manage and scale its containerized workloads across different clouds.

Volkswagen’s multi-cloud architecture has allowed the company to scale its IoT initiatives and achieve real-time insights into its manufacturing processes. By utilizing AWS, Azure, and GCP, Volkswagen has been able to take advantage of the unique features and services offered by each cloud provider. The company has been able to improve its supply chain and logistics processes, reduce maintenance costs, and enhance the overall quality of its products.

Overall, Volkswagen’s multi-cloud architecture has been critical to its success in IoT. The company’s ability to distribute workloads across multiple cloud providers has ensured high availability, improved performance, and enhanced security. As a result, Volkswagen has been able to stay at the forefront of innovation in the automotive industry and continue to produce some of the most popular car models in the world.

With that, we can now look at our practical exercise for this chapter, which will involve building a smart inventory management system with multi-cloud architecture.

Practical – building a smart inventory management system with multi-cloud architecture

In this practical, you will learn how to build a smart inventory management system with multi-cloud architecture using an ESP32 microcontroller, a BME680 sensor, AWS IoT Core, and Azure IoT Central. This unique end-of-chapter exercise is designed to help you apply the concepts you’ve learned in this chapter on developing complex, holistic IoT environments. This practical focuses on navigating complex hybrid deployments for IoT, understanding threats and risks within complex environments, and building multi-cloud architectures with AWS and Azure. By following the step-by-step instructions, even those unfamiliar with the topic will be able to create a functioning smart inventory management system that leverages the power of multiple cloud platforms.