M2M Application Platform

Lessen the Complexity of Developing M2M Applications

Today, machine-to-machine (M2M) applications are doing more than just monitoring the status of remote assets and equipment. They’re gathering real-time data from millions of connected machines – whether tractors, medical devices, vending machines,  or storage tanks – and translating it into meaningful information for quick decisions, automated actions, and strategic analytics.

While these capabilities can increase the value of M2M applications for the enterprise, they can also increase complexity for developers. Different devices and protocols and multiple integration points into enterprise systems can make for long, costly development cycles.

AT&T M2M Application Platform can dramatically speed the delivery time and lower the cost of application development and maintenance with a cloud-based data integration and application development environment, designed specifically for building M2M applications.

Leverage a pre-built M2M development framework

When you choose the AT&T M2M Application Platform, you can have the best of both worlds: You can create applications to suit the highly-specialized needs of M2M solutions, while leveraging pre-built components and flexible APIs to help streamline cost and complexity. The M2M development framework includes:

• An adaptable set of reference applications to meet specific needs, including applications for remote access, remote service, and software & content distribution
• A rich programming interface that includes Groovy, an easy-to-customize, Java-based scripting language
• A robust set of built-in web services for enhanced authentication, authorization and data transport security
• Data management tools, including a flexible rules engine and an extensible data model

Ease front-end connectivity and back-end integration

AT&T M2M Application Platform helps you create real-time information and control flows among machines, M2M applications, and back-end enterprise systems with:

A connected device framework:

• Standard data translation protocols for two-way communication with a variety of endpoints
• Server and client agents to translate and transmit data over a secure network with the  platform

An integration framework:

• Pre-built connectors and APIs for integration and communication with enterprise systems, such as CRM, ERP, billing and data warehouses

Benefit from cloud-based M2M development and deployment

A ready-made cloud-based infrastructure and development environment can help you:

• Build and launch apps more quickly to help lower costs and risks
• Scale easily to extend M2M services
• Reduce capital investments and pay a monthly service fee
• Monitor, manage and repair connected assets with included product management applications

Tap into M2M expertise

As a leader in M2M solutions with over 14 million connected devices communicating over the AT&T network, we can help you bring the benefits of M2M to your enterprise. Let AT&T free your developers to think less about protocols and code and more about leveraging M2M applications for competitive advantage.

AT&T M2M Application Platform Considerations

Here are some questions to think about as you consider AT&T M2M Application Platform Powered by Axeda for your organization: 

Are you being pressured to develop applications more quickly?
Unlike other business software you can buy off the shelf, there aren’t many ready-made software options that fit the specialized needs of M2M apps. Yet, building these highly customized solutions in-house typically means long and costly development cycles.

In addition to providing flexible APIs and an integration framework, the AT&T M2M Application Development Platform includes a set of pre-built reference applications that are ready to be customized to your needs, which can help you decrease development time. 

Do you have the in-house resources to integrate an end-to-end M2M solution?
M2M applications must collect data from hundreds, thousands, or even millions of devices and securely communicate with back-end systems to transform the data into actionable business information. There are many different protocols, components, and integration points that must come together to enable that real-time data flow, increasing build time and risks.

As an experienced M2M solution provider, AT&T has the expertise needed to help you define, design, integrate, secure, and deploy an end-to-end M2M solution to help reduce complexity and projects risks. 

Have you considered the full lifecycle costs of M2M applications?
As you make your build vs. buy decisions for software, you need to think about the costs involved in setting up, managing, updating and supporting the technology infrastructure that supports them.

When you choose AT&T M2M Application Platform, the infrastructure resides in the AT&T cloud. Instead of making capital equipment investments, you access the environment on-demand for a monthly fee and AT&T manages the infrastructure for you.

How will you manage the impact of change?
When you consider the range of connected machines, integration points and enterprise applications involved in an M2M solution, change is a constant. As a standards-based, highly extensible environment, AT&T M2M Application Platform can help you adapt more easily to  change and scale as you grow.  

Designing Your AT&T M2M Application Platform Solution

The AT&T M2M Center of Excellence can conduct a technology workshop to assess your needs and map your requirements into an end-to-end solution approach. You can also arrange for more in-depth assessment, design, development, and deployment services as part of a professional services engagement with the AT&T Mobility Solutions Services group.

AT&T M2M Application Platform Service Delivery

The AT&T M2M Application Platform Powered by Axeda is deployed as a service in the cloud. You connect to the sandbox development environment via HTTPS over a public network to build and test your applications. 

Once deployed in your production environment, your application can scale without concerns over adding hardware infrastructure.   Firewall friendly agents help deliver data from devices over the AT&T network or other channels, through the platform to your cloud based application, while application output information can be delivered to your IT environment over an AT&T VPN.

The service includes extensible connected product management applications to help you monitor, manage and repair your connected assets.

Customer Support for Your AT&T M2M Application Platform Solution

AT&T offers a range of support services throughout the M2M application development, deployment, and management lifecycle.  AT&T Mobility Solution Services teams can help you build a robust application and support your application users.

Training and Technical support is available for developers and application managers with AT&T M2M Application Platform.  An active developer community is involved with the platform.  Sample applications, easy to learn tools such as Groovy scripting, and sandbox access from anywhere help speed developers to proficiency.  Training available includes classroom instruction.

To learn more about AT&T M2M Application Platform Powered by Axeda, talk to your AT&T representative or Have Us Call You.