Glossary

Acknowledgement

Digital twin layer

An acknowledgement (ACK) is a confirmation that a request was processed successfully.
See Acknowledgements

Acknowledgement

Device connectivity layer

An acknowledgement is sent from Bosch IoT Hub to a device or to a business application as a confirmation for receiving of a message. The devices and applications can also send acknowledgements to  Bosch IoT Hub.

Asset

Bosch IoT Suite

An asset can be anything from a tangible and  physical device  to the more intangible such as a  system  or the reputation of a company.
In our context, we define an asset as any item, entity, application, or even system of applications that can be registered with Bosch IoT Suite.

Bosch IoT Edge

Bosch IoT Edge

Bosch IoT Edge has two components:

• Bosch IoT Edge Agent, which provides the essential IoT enablement for an edge device - cloud connectivity, local messaging, software updates and containers management. Bosch IoT Edge Agent is modular native application that runs on the device, portable for a wide variety of device platforms - from small microcontrollers with Zephyr to powerful edge compute nodes.

• Bosch IoT Edge Services (the former Bosch IoT Gateway Software), which provides extended device connectivity and advanced edge services such as history, statistics, rules engine, etc., including tools for building and deploying the right set of services for your device.

See Bosch IoT Edge

Bosch IoT Hub

Device connectivity layer

Bosch IoT Hub is a cloud service of Bosch IoT Suite.

It allows you to connect devices through various protocols to IoT applications in an easy and secure manner.

See Device connectivity layer, namely Bosch IoT Hub

Bosch IoT Suite

Bosch IoT Suite

Bosch IoT Suite provides middleware capabilities needed to build sophisticated IoT applications from top to bottom. It is provided as a set of cloud services.

Bosch IoT Suite portal

Bosch IoT Suite

All the functionalities visible to an authenticated user.
The range of items visible to the authenticated user may vary based on what he is authorized to see or do.

The portal allows you for example to register as a potential customer (B2B), to subscribe free plans, to manage your subscriptions etc.
Further, it maintains the legal framework and terms of use for all services of the Bosch IoT Suite family.

https://bosch-iot-suite.com/legal/

https://bosch-iot-suite.com/legal/terms-of-use/

Bosch IoT Suite UI

Bosch IoT Suite

A Web UI available for customers of Bosch IoT Suite.

Sometimes Bosch IoT Suite UI is also referred to as Bosch IoT Suite Console or Developer Console.

Bosch IoT Suite website

Bosch IoT Suite

All the pages visible in the www to an anonymous user (as well as web crawlers etc.)

For example, it presents the service catalog for general information:

https://bosch-iot-suite.com/

Bosch IoT Things

Digital twin layer

Bosch IoT Things is the digital twin layer of Bosch IoT Suite.

The digital twin of a physical device is called a thing.
The thing holds information about the features and the attributes of the device.
The policy associated to the thing defines the access to the data and functionalities of the device.

See digital twin layer > Things and Features

Client certificate

Device connectivity layer

A client certificate is the credential type to authenticate the devices.

Cloud Protocol Gateway

Device connectivity layer

The cloud protocol gateway is a custom component that must be implemented and operated by customers. It acts like a software gateway and needs to be registered in the device connectivity layer, namely Bosch IoT Hub Device Registry, as a device. It is responsible for authenticating the physical devices which communicate via this gateway and for transferring the device’s proprietary protocol into the protocol used by the device connectivity layer protocol adapter.

See Cloud Protocol Gateway - operated by a customer

Command and control

Device connectivity layer

Command and control messages provide a way to send messages from the device connectivity layer, namely Bosch IoT Hub, to a  device .

See Command and control examples

Connection

Digital twin layer

A connection in general describes that two parts are linked with each other.
In our context, we use the term connection to describe the linking of your service instance with other endpoints/servers to integrate them with each other.

See Connections

Credential registry management

Device connectivity layer

Credential registry management is one of the central components of Bosch IoT Hub for persisting of the information that is required to connect devices to Bosch IoT Hub. It exposes service endpoints implementing credentials API of Eclipse Hono™.

Credentials

Device connectivity layer

Credentials serve as a proof-of-identity in the context of the Bosch IoT Hub service.

Developer Console

Bosch IoT Suite

A Web UI available for customers of Bosch IoT Suite.

Sometimes Bosch IoT Suite UI is also referred to as Developer Console as per the button from which you enter.

Device

Device connectivity layer

A device is a representation of a physical or logical IoT device at the device connectivity layer, namely the Bosch IoT Hub service.

Device connection time

Device connectivity layer

Device connection time is the time during which the device is connected to Bosch IoT Hub.

Device identity management

Device connectivity layer

Device identity management is one of the central components of Bosch IoT Hub for persisting of the information that is required to connect devices to Bosch IoT Hub. The device identity management component exposes service endpoints implementing the device registration of Eclipse Hono™.

Device via gateway

IoT devices

A device behind a gateway will in general not need to register its own credentials with the device connectivity layer. Instead it will authenticate via the gateway credentials.

See Bosch IoT Device Management - Building blocks

Digital twin

Digital twin layer

The concept of a digital twin, its definition, and thus the expectations vary from one manufacturer to another.
At least all publications so far agree upon the task to provide a virtual representation of a physical asset.
Adding further information and functionalities enriches the digital twin into the more generally assumed holistic view that reflects all capabilities and aspects of a device/product asset.
In the context of Industrial IoT (IIoT) a digital twin is also called (asset) administration shell.
Bosch IoT Things is a cloud service implementing such a digital twin / administration shell concept for physical assets.
These digital twins can contain the virtual representation of a physical asset, as well as other information and functionalities to provide a holistic view accessible by API.

See Digital twin concepts

Eclipse Vorto

Device model

Eclipse Vorto is an open source project for semantic modelling of digital twins and their capabilities.

See https://www.eclipse.org/vorto/

Event

Digital twin layer

In the context of the digital twin layer, an event reports that a change has been applied to a thing entity.
Important here is the 'past tense', meaning that the change already took place (for example it was persisted into the data store) and cannot be reversed or stopped.

Example: A property value of a feature is modified.

Find further details related to the communication protocol at digital twins > Protocol.

Event message

Device connectivity layer

Via events you can send messages from your device to your application.

See Event example

Event storage time (TTL)

Device connectivity layer

Event storage time is the time interval during which event messages are stored in the Bosch IoT Hub messaging system to guarantee the delivery of the messages to a business application.

Functional Items Management (FIM)

Bosch IoT Edge

The Functional Items Management (FIM) module is part of Bosch IoT Edge Services.

It aims to unify the control of miscellaneous units (functional items or FIs).
Within the OSGi framework it provides a common interface to manage different types of controllable components (e.g. devices, user groups, automation, cloud services, UI widgets).

See Bosch IoT Edge Services > Functional Items Management

Gateway

Device connectivity layer

A gateway is a special device which communicates on behalf of another device with the Bosch IoT Hub service.

Gateway device

IoT devices

A gateway device is supposed to be able to reach the device connectivity layer by itself, e.g. to be IP-ready, and to help other devices to authenticate via its gateway credentials.

See Bosch IoT Device Management - Building blocks

Guaranteed delivery

Device connectivity layer

Bosch IoT Hub guarantees delivering of a message to a business application. The delivery is guaranteed only for event messages.

LoRaWAN enabled devices

Device connectivity layer

LoRaWAN enabled devices use LoRaWAN protocol for communication with a LoRa gateway.

Message

Digital twin layer

In the context of the digital twin layer a message can be used to transport arbitrary data between IoT devices and applications.
To invoke e.g. an operation on a device, a message can be sent to the thing or one of its features.
You can send messages to or from a thing and specify a subject which defines the meaning of the message. Messages contain custom payload with a custom content-type.

A message does not directly affect the state of a thing entity. Therefore, Bosch IoT Things does not handle messages like commands, i.e. there are no responses which are produced by our service and no events which are emitted for messages. Instead, the message needs to be handled respectively by your device or application.

Example: From an application’s perspective, a message can be sent to a thing or one of its features to call e.g. an operation at a device.

Find further details related to the communication protocol at digital twin> Protocol.

Metadata

Digital twin laye r

A thing may optionally contain metadata information, e.g. about single feature properties, complete features and also attributes or other data stored in a digital twin (thing). This metadata can contain additionally information which shall not be treated as part of the twin’s value, however may be useful to provide some context of the twin’s data.

Metadata has not its own API but can only be updated/set while modifying the state of a twin as a side effect. By default, metadata is not returned at API requests, but must be asked for explicitly.
See Eclipse Ditto documentation.

Namespace

Digital twin layer

A namespace is the prefix for your things and policies.
All thing IDs are composed following the pattern: namespace:thing-name.
All policy IDs are composed following the pattern: namespace:policy-name.

You can use the namespace to separate things from different solution spaces from each other, or to organize things of different types within your subscription.

See Unique identifier - common device ID patterns

One-way-command

Device connectivity layer

One-way-command is a communication pattern supported by Bosch IoT Hub. One-way-commands are sent from a connected business application through Bosch IoT Hub to a connected device. The device does not confirm the receipt of the command.

Organization

Bosch IoT Suite

The Bosch IoT Suite provides the possibility to book the Bosch IoT services for your projects.

All bookings of one account is represented as an organization.

Each booking within the organization is depicted as subscription.

All users invited to participate in a organization is represented as a team.

The separation per subscription additionally helps to better track the service usage (e.g. data storage and data transfer) belonging to the service instances.
E.g., in case of Bosch IoT Device Management the service subscription comprises an instance of four services which are integrated:

• the device connectivity layer (Bosch IoT Hub)

• the digital twin layer (Bosch IoT Things)

• the mass management layer (Bosch IoT Manager)

• the software updates layer (Bosch IoT Rollouts)

Policy

Digital twin layer

A policy enables developers to configure fine-grained access control in an easy way.
A specific policy defines who (subject) is granted or revoked permissions (rights) on a specific resource.
The resource can be defined as rough or as fine-grained as necessary for the respective use case.

See digital twin layer > Policies

Protocol adapter

Device connectivity layer

Protocol adapters enable devices that communicate via different protocols to be connected to Bosch IoT Hub.

Request/response command

Device connectivity layer

Request/response command is a communication pattern supported by Bosch IoT Hub. The request/response commands are sent from a connected business application through Bosch IoT Hub to a connected device. After the command was received by a device, the device confirms the receipt of the command.

Sensor

Device connectivity layer

A sensor is a module of a device that detects and measures changes in the environment and sends this information to Bosch IoT Hub.

Stand-alone device

IoT devices

A stand-alone device is supposed to be able to reach the device connectivity layer by itself, e.g. to be IP-ready, and to authenticate itself at the device connectivity layer (not via gateway).

See Bosch IoT Device Management - Building blocks

Subscription

Bosch IoT Suite

The Bosch IoT Suite provides the possibility to book the Bosch IoT services for your projects.

All bookings of one account is represented as an organization.

Each booking within the organization is depicted as subscription.

All users invited to participate in a organization is represented as a team.

The separation per subscription additionally helps to better track the service usage (e.g. data storage and data transfer) belonging to the service instances.
E.g., in case of Bosch IoT Device Management the service subscription comprises an instance of four services which are integrated:

• the device connectivity layer (Bosch IoT Hub)

• the digital twin layer (Bosch IoT Things)

• the mass management layer (Bosch IoT Manager)

• the software updates layer (Bosch IoT Rollouts)

Suite authorization

Bosch IoT Suite

The Bosch IoT Suite provides authorization functionality such as creating OAuth2 clients.
See Create a Suite Auth client

Developers can define clients for a specific scope.

This component is usable implicitly for all service instances subscribed as a solution.

Suite authorization token

Bosch IoT Suite

The bearer  token issued by the Bosch IoT Suite - authorization token endpoint. The token authorizes access to service APIs.

See Create a Suite Auth client

Suite authorization token endpoint

Bosch IoT Suite

The endpoint (URL) to request authorization tokens.
The tokens can be requested according to the OAuth 2 spec RFC 6749. See https://oauth.net/2/.
At the time of writing, we support only client credentials grant, https://oauth.net/2/grant-types/client-credentials/.

See Create a Suite Auth client

Suite OAuth2 client

Bosch IoT Suite

An OAuth2 client is created and managed in the Bosch IoT Suite. It grants access to one or more subscribed services. The client consists of  client ID ,  secret  and  scope . This information is provided as configured into a client application. The client application uses the client to get a token from the Suite authorization token endpoint.

See Create a Suite Auth client

Suite OAuth2 client - client ID

Bosch IoT Suite

The UUID is generated by the Suite authorization component of the Bosch IoT Suite.

See Create a Suite Auth client

Team

Bosch IoT Suite

The Bosch IoT Suite provides the possibility to book the Bosch IoT services for your projects.

All bookings of one account is represented as an organization.

Each booking within the organization is depicted as subscription.

All users invited to participate in a organization is represented as a team.

The separation per subscription additionally helps to better track the service usage (e.g. data storage and data transfer) belonging to the service instances.
E.g., in case of Bosch IoT Device Management the service subscription comprises an instance of four services which are integrated:

• the device connectivity layer (Bosch IoT Hub)

• the digital twin layer (Bosch IoT Things)

• the mass management layer (Bosch IoT Manager)

• the software updates layer (Bosch IoT Rollouts)

Telemetry message

Device connectivity layer

The simplest message type for sending  device  data to your application via the device connectivity layer is telemetry messages.

A telemetry message provides a way to send device data to your application without guaranteed delivery.

See Telemetry example

Tenant

Device connectivity layer

A tenant in context of the device connectivity layer, namely Bosch IoT Hub, is a service instance that has been booked via the Bosch IoT Suite.

Thing

Digital twin layer

A thing is the digital representation of an IoT device or any type of asset.
The entity - also known as digital twin - is used in general to cluster multiple features and manage the access to the data and functionality the thing represents.
A thing may have additional meta data (attributes) that describes the thing in more detail.

See Things and features

Time to disconnect (TTD)

Device connectivity layer

Time to disconnect specifies the time the device remains connected to the protocol adapter.

Vorto model

Device model

Semantic models of digital twins that can be used by Bosch IoT Suite and third party applications.

See https://www.eclipse.org/vorto/