Technical Documentation: Ways of connectivity

The many ways of connecting things to Proficloud.io

There are many ways for connecting a device, a Computer or anything else to Proficloud.io.
Proficloud.io offers several of secured APIs and protocols in form of MQTT and REST interfaces.
To not let the firmware developers alone with constant changes in the APIs, the protocols and the security measures, we developed different kind of solutions that abstract these things and offer you a much easier to use way of connecting to Proficloud.io.

Cloud Connector Software Development Kit

We developed a Cloud Connector Software Development Kit (SDK) with an easy to use C++ API saving the firmware developers from dealing with the technical details and instead to concentrate on the functionalities offered by Proficloud.io.
The SDK will do all secure communication to Proficloud.io and beyond to anyCloud.
It will also take care of things like how the data send to cloud needs to be formatted, the onboarding process of the device, or where and how to get firmware images needed for over the air updates.

Cloud Connector Service

There are cases where one needs a more modular, programming language independent solution, which goes beyond managing the secure communication and the abstraction of the cloud APIs only.
A solution is needed that is easy to use, offers additional functionality like doing the whole firmware update process on its own, and which can be easily integrated in the firmware build process.

This is why we introduced the Cloud Connector Service, based on the Cloud Connector SDK, with MQTT as inter process communication mechanism for a modular system design, offering additional processes like a RAUC updater process for firmware updates and which has a Yocto layer for easy integration into the target system.

PLCnext Cloud Connector Component

If the plan is to build a new programmable logic controller (PLC) or there is already a Phoenix Contact’s PLCnext platform used, then we have good news:
Our SDK is integrated into the PLCnext Technology and can be used there very easily out of the box.

Internet of Things gateway

Last but not least it might be, that there is either a device which is not capable of building up a secure internet connection on its own, or there are a large amount of similar devices where it is not wanted to have each device its own individual connection to the internet.
Then a Internet of Things gateway can be applied. There are some gateway options in development at the moment, besides options like using a PLCnext controller as a gateway or our new Node Red integration of the SDK.
The gateway options allow to send data to the cloud. With the drawback, that to use more sophisticated features, like firmware update, for your devices behind a gateway is not possible anymore at the moment.

To sum up there are plenty of choices to connect whatever is wanted to Proficloud.io or one of the other supported cloud providers.
Take our Cloud Connector SDK to connect a device directly to the cloud.
Take the Cloud Connector Service when there is already a fully fledged Linux operating system to take advantage of its abilities beyond the SDK.
Having a PLCnext based system? Then take a look in the already integrated Cloud Connector component.
For all other cases take an IoT gateway solution that fits to your needs.