The Device Form, Bulk Uploader, Wizard and provisioning API enable you to quickly create a device object on the platform which represents your physical/logical IoT device. Devices can be added individually or in bulk.
Each device object is automatically assigned a unique device identity (udid) by the platform. Customer can also assign customized device identity in the device_id field and or if using a cellular device an IMSI identity may also be assigned in the IMSI field for the device.
Auto Assigning Devices To Service Profiles / Upstream Applications
When creating a device using the a service profile must be specified to associate the device to.
Devices can be dynamically assigned to service profiles using the deviceUpdateAutoAssign API endpoint. This service creates the device on the platform and automatically assigns the device to a customer service profile. The service profile is dynamically chosen based on the target application and region_id parameter specified in the create request within each device object parameters. The service profile elected will be one linked to an Upstream Profile with a matching target application type (i.e. Customer_Application_AZURE_IOTHUB). If more than one upstream profile match the target application type specified, the upstream application with the matching region_id specified in the device object parameters is picked. If no region_id is provided in the request or no match is found then an upstream profile (matching the target application) is randomly selected.
Device Management Services
The platform provides two types of device management services as described in the Device Management Services section.
Supported Device Protocols and Data Frameworks
The platform supports many combinations of device transport protocols, application protocols, raw sockets, blob data and plug and play data frameworks to external platforms such as Azure IoThub. Please refer to the Supported Device Protocols sections for more information.
Notes:
A device must be associated to a Service Profile. When using the deviceUpdateAutoAssign endpoint to create a device a Service Profile can be automatically assigned to the device. As described above.
When performing provisioning and messaging API calls devices can be uniquely identified by their platform assigned UDID or customer assigned device_id or IMSI. Alternatively devices can also be identified by their connection IP address + Service Profile (service_template_id). The platform is flexible and allows you to mix and match the different identity types for different set of devices on the same customer account.
By default the bulk upload is limited to 10000 device create/update per request. This is a configurable limit that can be increased on depending on your account subscription type.
A device can connect to the platform from anywhere in the world using the regions presently activivated on your account.
Devices may use several regions for (geo) resilience purposes and devices can be restricted to specific regions and or specific service access point (protocol interface) as appropriate.
Device data residency, queueing, storage duration and other features can be configured in the Service Profile the device is associated with.
Refer to the Device Fields Parameter section for more information on the customer defined device identifiers supported and for an overview of the device fields and descriptions.