AWS IoT Greengrass
- What it is
- Open-source edge runtime that extends AWS to the device itself.
- Devices run AWS Lambda functions, containers, and ML inference locally, then sync to the cloud when connected.
- Why
- Act locally — respond in milliseconds without a round trip to the Region.
- Work offline — intermittent connectivity (ships, mines, factories, vehicles) does not stop operation.
- Reduce cost and bandwidth — filter and aggregate at the edge; send only what matters upstream.
- Local ML inference using models trained in Amazon SageMaker AI.
- The relationship
- Greengrass devices still use AWS IoT Core as the cloud endpoint for messaging and management. Greengrass is the edge half, IoT Core the cloud half.