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Device Management Service

Idea

This service provides interfaces for managing device types and a database of all devices as well as for mapping device agents to devices.

Access

For accessing this service you need to have the respective roles listed in Device Management Service roles and scopes.

Basics

Devices

Devices are instances of device types. When a new device is created, it is set to private by default and the user can specify an asset as its digital twin. The asset is used to store and inspect data uploaded by the device. It must at least have the aspect core.firmwarestatus.

Device Types

Each device in Insights Hub instantiates a device type, which cannot be changed after device creation. Multiple device types can refer to the same type of hardware. This is particularly useful, if the hardware is an IPC, which requires different firmware depending on the application field. Based on the device type, the Firmware Deployment Service determines which firmware can be installed on a device.

When creating a new device type, the user must specify the asset type which represents the device for further analysis of the uploaded data in Insights Hub. The Device Management Service validates that the given asset type is unique and that it has an aspect of type core.firmwarestatus.

Device Type Lifecycle

Device types can be created and updated, but not deleted. Once a device type is created, it is visible to all environments. However, it can only be updated by the tenant, that created the device type.

Device Properties

All devices have a properties field which can be used for arbitrary metadata. Metadata could for example specify hardware information such as the RAM size or commissioning related information such as the location. The properties of a device can be updated.

Device to Agent Mapping

MindConnect Open Edge Services perform operations on devices, which are digital representations of physical objects stored in Insights Hub. The actual physical devices, however, use an agent to communicate with Industrial IoT. Hence, a mapping between agents and devices is required. Insights Hub allows an m:n mapping and with agents with the aspect core.connectivitystatus or core.agentstatus.

The device to agent mapping is stored in the device and specifies the list of agents that are allowed to access the device. Devices can exist in Insights Hub without an active connection to an agent. When the connection to an agent is interrupted, the related data, e.g. the device's last state, can still be accessed via the backend.

Features

The Device Management Service exposes its API for realizing the following tasks:

  • create, update and read device types
  • create, update, read and delete devices
  • define device to agent mappings

Example Scenario

A company wants to connect multiple machines of various types to Insights Hub via a gateway for firmware updates. They use a single agent to act as a gateway. In the Device Management they create a device for each machine and define a device to agent mapping between the gateway agent and the devices. They can now use the Firmware Deployment Service to update the firmware on specific devices.


Last update: April 13, 2023

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