As internet of things (IoT) projects proliferate, application development and delivery (AD&D) teams are successfully applying best practices from high-velocity mobile app development. These include adoption of public cloud-based platform services with IoT and mobile-specific capabilities to accelerate product delivery. A key component of them is a design pattern called the “digital twin” — a doppelgänger of a physical device. This report describes why IoT platform providers created it, what its benefits are, and how it will become integral to next-gen software architecture.