Microsoft’s Azure Sphere solution consists of three main components to ensure future Internet of Things devices have the best-in-class protection, including the custom designed, Azure Sphere certified microcontrollers, cloud-based Azure Sphere Security Service, as well as the Azure Sphere operating system powered by the Linux kernel. To provide future Internet of Things devices with a trustworthy and highly-secured software environment, Microsoft said that it created its own custom Linux kernel for Azure Sphere, which uses the security innovations the company has pioneered in its widely-used Windows operating system. The Azure Sphere OS differs from other real-time operating systems as it offers multiple layers of security.