How a technology firm built a managed service platform for their partners
With a decade of experience in end-to-end IoT solutions and IoT services, read how Thinxtream® used AWS® IoT to build a scalable, device-agnostic, cloud-based solution.
The business goal
With subscription-based services becoming increasingly popular in the market, our customer wanted to offer Device-as-a-Service to end-users for multiple device types and models, through channel partners.
In a multilevel channel network of OEMs, partners and resellers, providing a restricted view to each hierarchical entity was a key business requirement. As was supporting multiple device types and models with a common solution for a multi-product company.
While our customer had the domain knowledge and technical expertise to design such a XaaS solution, they needed a reliable end-to-end IoT solutions implementation partner with prior experience of developing large-scale IoT solutions on top of managed services, such as Thinxtream, to develop their XaaS solution.
Top IoT challenges
- Business intelligence
- Multiple product SKUs
- Multiple partner levels
- Usage reporting and control
- Scalability and extensibility
- Multilingual support
- Multiple verticals and business models
- Secure connectivity
Key highlights
- Device-agnostic and multi-tenanted XaaS platform
- Built fully on managed services
- Flexible device data models and discovery
- Support for field gateway
- Device specific applications
- Role-based portals and dashboards
- Responsive device app for mobile access
- Customizable user registration
- User access restrictions
- Status, usage monitoring and control
- Seamless integration with BI systems
The IoT solution
Thinxtream implemented a device-agnostic, multi-tenanted XaaS platform built entirely on AWS managed services, supporting diverse device types, partner hierarchies and business models:
- IoT platform: AWS® IoT
- Cloud services: AWS IoT Device Gateway, JIT provisioning, device shadow and rules engine, AWS Lambda®, Identity and Access Management, Amazon Cognito® and API Gateway
- Cloud data services: Amazon DynamoDB®, Amazon S3®
- UI: Responsive web application for desktop and mobile
- Programming: HTML5, AngularJS, Node.js®, Java®, OAuth, MQTT/HTTPS
- Client OS: Android™, iOS®
- Others: Kendo UI® dashboards, JasperReports®, cloud storage — Dropbox™, OneDrive®, Google Drive™
The results
The technology firm leveraged Thinxtream's end-to-end IoT services to develop a custom IoT solution for XaaS. They deployed it for a major printer OEM. Custom portals offered different access levels for the OEM and its channels. Usage patterns and logs helped forecast demand for supplies and offer predictive maintenance support. Based on this success, the customer addressed similar requirements in the retail and medical equipment markets.
The AWS IoT serverless reference architecture and suggested best practices for IoT solutions helped Thinxtream deliver a scalable, economical and extensible service platform for the customer.
Thinxtream's agile and continuous development cycle helped the customer to create a feature pipeline for early preview, timely delivery and a system for adapting to changing market requirements.
"The successful deployment of this device-agnostic XaaS platform based on AWS IoT, enabled our customer to address multiple markets."— Teck-Lee Low, Executive Director, Thinxtream
