Basic Concepts

IoTDA

Short for IoT Device Access, a basic service of the Huawei Cloud IoT platform. IoTDA provides functions such as device fleet access, bidirectional communications between devices and the cloud, batch device management, remote control and monitoring, OTA upgrade, and device linkage rules. It can flexibly transfer device data to other Huawei Cloud or third-party services. Using IoTDA, you can quickly connect devices to the platform and integrate your applications.

Resource space

A space allocated for your applications. Resources (such as products and devices) created on the platform must belong to a resource space. You can use the resource space for domain-based management as well as resource isolation and authorization management.

AppID

Resource space ID (the app_id parameter for API calling) used as the unique identifier of the resource space.

ProjectID

Unique identifier of a project. A default project is provided for each Huawei Cloud region to group and isolate resources (including compute, storage, and network resources) across physical regions. IAM users can be granted permissions to access all resources in a specific project.

Edge node

An open platform located close to devices or data sources. It integrates core capabilities of network, compute, storage, and applications to provide compute and intelligence services locally, making real-time services intelligent and ensuring data privacy and security.

Module

Also called a communications module, an independent display unit consisting of display modules, drive circuits, control circuits, chips, and mechanical parts. Devices communicate with the platform through modules. Currently, 2G/3G/4G/5G, NB-IoT, and Wi-Fi communications modules are provided.

Device

A device is a physical entity that belongs to a product. Each device has a unique ID. It can be a device directly connected to the platform, or a gateway through which child devices are connected to the platform.

Device ID

An ID that uniquely identifies a device. It is allocated by the platform during device registration and used for device access authentication and message transmission.

Node ID

A unique physical identifier for a device, such as its IMEI or MAC address. This parameter is used by the platform to authenticate the device during device registration.

CoAP/CoAPS

A software protocol designed to enable simple devices to perform interactive communication on the Internet.

CoAPS refers to CoAP over DTLS. DTLS is used for encrypted transmission.

LwM2M

Short for Lightweight Machine to Machine, an IoT protocol defined by Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). It is mainly used for NB-IoT devices with limited resources (such as limited storage and power supply).

MQTT/MQTTS

An IoT transmission protocol designed for lightweight publish/subscription messaging. It provides reliable network services for IoT devices in low-bandwidth and unstable network environments.

MQTTS refers to the combination of MQTT and SSL/TLS. SSL and TLS are used for encrypted transmission.

Device CA certificate

A certificate issued by a certification authority (CA) such as VeriSign, Symantec, and GlobalSign and used to verify the identity between the server and client during HTTPS link establishment.

X.509 device certificate

A digital certificate used to authenticate communication entities. After a device with authentication mode set to X.509 certificate is created, the platform issues the X.509 certificate to the device.

Secret

Used for authentication when a device uses native MQTT to connect to the platform.

PSK

Used to encrypt the transmission channel between the platform and NB-IoT devices or devices integrated with the SDK.

IAM

Short for Identity and Access Management, a Huawei Cloud service that provides identity authentication and permission management. You can use IAM to manage user accounts (such as employees, systems, and applications) and control the operation permissions of these users on your resources.

Product

A collection of devices with the same capabilities or features. It helps developers quickly develop product models and codecs, and provides capabilities such as device integration, online commissioning, and topic customization, facilitating end-to-end IoT development and helping you improve integration development efficiency and shorten the construction period of IoT solutions.

Product model

A product model, also called a thing model, is used to describe the capabilities and features of a device. You can construct an abstract model of a device type by defining a product model on the platform, allowing it to understand the services, properties, and commands supported by the device.

Product ID

An ID that identifies the product to which a device belongs. This parameter is used to associate the product model of the device.

Service

Part of the product model that describes the capabilities of a device. Device capabilities are divided into several services. The properties, commands, and command parameters of each service are defined in the product model.

Property

Part of the product model that describes the running status of a device, such as the current ambient temperature read by an environment monitoring device.

Topic

A UTF-8 character string functioning as the transmission medium of publish/subscription messaging. You can publish messages to or subscribe to messages from a topic.

Command

A capability or method that can be invoked by external systems.

Event

A functional model of a device, which is an event during device running. Events can be subscribed to and pushed.

Codec

Plug-in used for format conversion. The platform communicates with applications using data in JSON format. For a device that reports binary data, you must develop codecs for the platform to convert binary data into JSON data. For a device that reports JSON data, you can develop codecs to convert data in different JSON formats.

Gateway

A physical entity that manages child devices and connects child devices to the platform.

Child device

A physical device that connects to the platform through a gateway.

Firmware

A driver underlying the device hardware. It is responsible for the underlying work of a system, for example, the basic input/output system (BIOS) on a computer mainboard.

Firmware upgrade, also called firmware over the air (FOTA), allows users to upgrade the firmware of LwM2M or MQTT devices in OTA mode. For example, an upgrade of an NB-IoT module is a firmware upgrade.

Software

Software is classified into system software and application software. The system software is for the basic device functions, such as the compilation tool and system file management. The application software provides functions such as data collection, analysis, and processing, depending on the features of the device.

Software upgrade, also called software over the air (SOTA), allows users to upgrade the software of LwM2M or MQTT devices in OTA mode. For example, an MCU upgrade is a software upgrade.

PCP

A protocol that defines the communications content and format between devices and the platform for device upgrades.

Group

A collection of devices. You can create groups for all the devices in a project space based on different rules, such as regions and types, and you can manage and operate the devices by group.

Tag

You can define tags and bind tags to devices.

Device shadow

A JSON file that stores the device status, latest device properties reported, and device configurations to be delivered. Each device has only one shadow. A device can retrieve and set its shadow to synchronize the status, either from the shadow to the device or from the device to the shadow.

Rule engine

A preset condition used by the platform to trigger actions. The device will report device data, which is checked against the rules. When a rule condition is met, the platform will trigger corresponding actions such as delivering a command to the device or forwarding data to other Huawei Cloud services. You can create device linkage and data forwarding rules.

Subscription and push

Subscription: An application calls a platform API to learn changes to device service details (such as device registration, data reporting, and device status) and management details (such as software or firmware upgrade statuses and upgrade results) from the platform.

Push: After a subscription is successful, the platform pushes the corresponding change to the specified callback URL or AMQP message queue based on the type of data subscribed.

token

An authentication parameter used to call platform APIs. When an application accesses the platform for the first time, it must call the authentication API to get authenticated and obtain a token.

AMQP

AMQP, an advanced message queue protocol at the application layer of the unified messaging service, is an open standard application layer protocol for message-oriented middleware. The platform can communicate with and transfer data to applications using AMQP.