Introduction to the Device Cloud Service API

Device Cloud provides a set of APIs that are used to enable devices to connect to Device Cloud and enables mobile and desktop applications to interact with the data available in Device Cloud.

The transport mechanisms supported by Device Cloud include MQTT and HTTPS. Device Cloud is compliant with the TR50 Protocol specification. This specification describes a transport-agnostic protocol to enable bidirectional communication and monitoring of events and information between logical entities within the system. This protocol provides a standard way to package and transmit information relating to a device, independent of the communication method used (MQTT or HTTPS).

The information provided in this guide includes the following:

  • a generic description of the TR50 protocol message format used on top of MQTT and HTTP interfaces

  • a description of the authentication required to connect to Device Cloud

  • an overview of the MQTT and REST interfaces used to communicate with Device Cloud

  • a summary of the TR50-compliant commands supported by Device Cloud
    Note:

    By default, 100 API calls are allowed per second. Only Super Ops have permissions to change it.

Prerequisites

The use the Device Cloud Service APIs, you need the following:

  • familiarity with the terminology in the Device Cloud Glossary

  • the ability to execute an HTTPS POST method using your programming language of choice

  • an MQTT client capable of using the publish and subscribe commands

  • the ability to encode and decode JSON data structures

Device Cloud Data Model

Device Cloud implements a data model that is the basis of the following:

  • the functionality of the Management Portal described in the Device Cloud Management Portal User's Guide

  • the APIs and interfaces described in this document

For information, see Device Cloud Getting Started.