Microsoft Spreads Open Enclave SDK, Integrates With Azure IoT Edge

Microsoft continued to flesh out its $5 billion investment into the IoT and edge space with its latest push targeted at the developer community. The company launched cross-platform availability of its Open Enclave SDK that helps manage devices deployed in edge network architectures. It also previewed the integration of that platform into its Azure IoT Edge security manager. Eustace Asanghanwa, senior program manager for Microsoft’s Azure IoT business, explained in a blog post that the expanded reach of the Open Enclave SDK will allow developers to write trusted applications that can run in trusted environments within Arm and Intel chip architectures. Those environments are known as enclaves, which are secured parts of a chip architecture. “This broad applicability across different enclave technologies and integration with IoT Edge greatly simplifies the work developers must do to protect data and devices at the edge,” Asanghanwa wrote. The Open Enclave SDK provides a consistent API surface and secured hardware abstraction to support trusted computing application development. It basically abstracts the developer away from having to deal with hardware security. Microsoft open sourced the platform early last month. The SDK builds on Microsoft’s Azure Sphere. That platform supports the building of secured microcontroller devices that can work with edge applications. It was also the first completely open source-based product built by Microsoft.