Introduction to our IoT platform

Overview

Cloud of Things provides

• Certified software libraries you can use to bring your remote assets into the cloud.
• Device management, data visualization and remote control functionality through the web.
• Rapid customization of these functionalities through real-time processing and applications.
• APIs for extending the existing functionality or interfacing Cloud of Things with your other IT services such as ERP or CRM systems. Cloud of Things can also host your HTML5 applications.

These features are provided through a cloud-based subscription service making the creation of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with Cloud of Things fundamentally different from bespoke development and RAD (rapid application development). You can start immediately with a large amount of existing functionality, and you can start for free. You do not need to worry about IT infrastructure (hosting, networking, security, storage and backup) and IT management (all software is available to your users).

Cloud of Things works with any network architecture, but is specifically designed to work out of the box with mobile networks. In the following sections, we will give a short overview of the different functional areas with references to more detailed descriptions.

Terms and Conditions to use Cloud of Things are described at https://www.softwareag.cloud/site/terms.html#/.

Software libraries

Cloud of Things offers a wide range of functionality for interfacing IoT devices and other IoT-related data sources with the Cloud of Things platform.

If your device uses a completely proprietary runtime environment, you can always use MQTT and SmartREST 2. These will work on practically any internet-connected device today, down to the smallest systems.

Detailed information on device integration using MQTT and REST can be found in Device integration.

Mobile networking support

Cloud of Things supports any type of internet connectivity in a secure manner. It gracefully deals with intermittent, bandwidth-restricted and uni-directional connections (such as communication through NAT). Where desired, Cloud of Things can control remote devices in a real-time manner.

Mobile internet connectivity is an ideal choice for many machine-to-machine applications, since it works well nearly everywhere without requiring any integration with a company’s network infrastructure. This is especially true if your IoT SIM card allows for free roaming between mobile networks. The large bandwidths requirements of consumer applications are often not required. With Cloud of Things, you can benefit from mobile connectivity without requiring additional network provider services such as VPNs and public or even static IP addressing.

Device management

Cloud of Things provides extensive device management for fully certified devices. This includes:

• Hardware and modem information.
• Connection monitoring.
• Centralized fault management and service level monitoring.
• Configuration management.
• Software and firmware management.
• Graphs of device statistics.
• Frequently used remote controls (such as restart button and switches).
• Troubleshooting features such as events list and operations queue.

The level of depth in device management may depend on device features (for example if a device does not support remote firmware upgrade, it will also not be available through Cloud of Things). For interfacing devices not yet certified with Cloud of Things, the Device management library and Device integration are publicly available.

Visualization and remote control

Cloud of Things visualizes your sensor data centrally and graphically through its modern web user interface. It also exposes common remote controls to users with the relevant permissions.

The user interface automatically adapts itself to the devices you connect – no configuration required. For example, if you connect a device that supports being restarted from remote, you will see a “Restart” button. If the device sends light sensor data, you will see a graph with the readings from the sensor.

It also adapts itself to the web browser that you use. For example, if you use a mobile phone or tablet with limited screen size, it will change user interface controls to use less screen estate.

Through the Sensor library, common sensor and control types are rendered correctly regardless of the device that produces the sensor data.

Customization

The functionality described so far already provides a wide range of device management, visualization and control options.

Furthermore it produces custom visualization, new control widgets and custom business logic.

Cloud of Things has extensive customization options, for example:

• Write alarm rules to reprioritize or suppress alarms and to define your SLA parameters.
• Use realtime to implement real-time business rules. For example, get an email when critical events happen, or trigger automated actions on devices in that case.
• Set up a graphical dashboard with your most important KPIs.
• Subscribe to plugins that contribute new functionality to the Cloud of Things application.

Customization concepts of Cloud of Things are described in Real-time processing and Developing applications.

APIs

Cloud of Things exposes its complete functionality through programming interfaces (APIs). This means that all of Cloud of Things’s functionality is available for you to use in different contexts outside of what Cloud of Things directly provides - in your own applications, in your own devices. See the Cloud of Things OpenAPI Specification for details.

In contrast to many other IoT platforms, Cloud of Things uses the same APIs and the same interface technology for all use cases. As a consequence, you have a wider range of choices in putting intelligence into your IoT devices, depending on how powerful they are. Moreover, you only need to use one set of APIs and one technology to build a complete solution from device to application on your own.

Cloud of Things uses HTTP and REST, which is today the most widely used interfacing technology and which works on any internet-connected device ranging from small embedded microcontrollers up to desktop PCs. The secure variant, HTTPS, is used for the most security critical applications and will give you the best possible security.

The plugin concept of Cloud of Things enables you to write new user interface functionality that will seamlessly extend the existing Cloud of Things platform.

Compatibility policy

Cloud of Things provides the highest possible level of compatibility to make sure that your investments into developing solutions with Cloud of Things are maintained.

The current compatibility statements are described as follows.

API compatibility

Cloud of Things’s REST, SmartREST and MQTT APIs as documented in the product documentation are backwards compatible. You can find such documentation in:

• Cloud of Things OpenAPI Specification
• Reference guide > SmartREST 2.0
• Device Integration > Device integration using MQTT

Cloud of Things is continually improving the user experience and product capabilities and may improve the API from time-to-time. In general, applications must always obey a few basic rules:

• Clients must only use documented API methods and documented behavior. Do not rely on undocumented but observed behavior.
• Clients must only rely on behavior that is explicitly described in the documentation. For instance, clients shall not rely on a sequence of results if no sort order is guaranteed.
• Clients can rely on a stable inventory API where they can manage their inventory objects. However, the data structures for objects owned by the Cloud of Things platform can change.
• APIs will evolve within the boundaries of backward compatibility; as examples optional fields might be added in the request and APIs might return additional JSON fields. Therefore, clients must be written in a way that they ignore such changes.
• There is no forward compatibility specified for the Cloud of Things APIs, therefore newer clients built against a newer API (or SDK) are not guaranteed to work with older Cloud of Things APIs.

Preview APIs

To maintain API and product quality we may, from time to time, hold back new APIs in a preview state to make sure that they are robust, properly documented, and provide the capability required. These APIs may change without a prior announcement. Please keep this in mind if you start using APIs that are documented as beta in our API documentation.

SDK and client library compatibility

Cloud of Things developer libraries and SDKs (like Java, JavaScript) may be changed. The libraries and SDKs help developers to access the Cloud of Things APIs in their custom implementation and are typically bundled with the custom implementation. The programming interfaces for Cloud of Things developer libraries and SDKs might change with new versions, requiring the custom implementation using these libraries or SDKs to be changed. It is not required to upgrade the custom implementation since the underlying REST and MQTT APIs remain compatible as long as no breaking changes to the APIs happen (see API compatibility).

Maintenance release

For clarification, maintenance releases for the same GA release contain only corrective functional changes but no breaking API changes.

Applications and microservices

In general, you can run an older application or microservice version against a newer Cloud of Things backend, as long as the application or microservice uses documented APIs only. In the rare case of announced breaking changes it might be required to update the application or microservice with a more recent version of an SDK before the change becomes effective.

Cloud of Things functionality

Cloud of Things microservices and user interface features may be deprecated. In this case, the Cloud of Things deprecation process provides an early indication to users of the features. Deprecation notices are included in the documentation and the release notes at least 6 months ahead of the version in which the change becomes effective.

Where to learn more

More conceptual information can be found in the following sections of the Concept guide:

• The general technical concepts behind Cloud of Things are described in Cloud of Things’s domain model.
• Concepts related to interfacing devices and other IT systems with Cloud of Things are described in Interfacing devices.
• Customization concepts of Cloud of Things are described in Real-time processing and Developing applications.
• Security concepts are described in Security aspects.

Summary

Cloud of Things is an independent device and application management IoT platform. It connects and manages your devices and assets efficiently and can control them remotely.

• Connect your devices and assets over any network.
• Monitor conditions and generate real-time analytics.
• React immediately to conditions or situations.