The REST Device Adapter (DA) package defines its own protocol for management of remote devices via the Remote Manager (RM). The protocol is proprietary and its maintenance is implemented on the top of the Generic Device Management (GDM) framework of the Remote Manager that normally allows custom devices to be plugged into the System. The value brought by the Rest Device Adapter is that custom devices can be plugged without developing java extensions for the Remote Manager – Control Unit Providers, normally required by the GDM. Instead, the Rest Device Adapter:
implements generic Control Unit Providers interacting with the GDM framework and
opens Rest APIs interface for remote devices directly to communicate with the Remote Manager backend.
The basic components of the REST DA architecture are described below:
Generic Device Management – This is the basement device management framework of the Remote Manager. It normally allows Custom device types to be plugged by implementing the so called Control Unit Providers. Once provided, all devices of arbitrary diverse types can be managed in a unified way via the common abstraction for device representation – Control Unit
Rest Device Adapter – This is where the presented Rest Device Adapter package takes place. It dynamically creates and registers Control Unit Providers in front of the GDM framework. The providers are registered on behalf of (and with correspondence with) the End Devices sending data via the Rest API methods calls.
End Devices – These are the End Devices residing remotely from the Remote Manager backend and managed by it. They use the provided Rest API Interface to communicate with the backend providing monitoring data and accepting control commands.
Rest API Interface – This is the interface provided by the Rest Device Adapter to the End Devices. In essence, it defines a specific device management protocol. The protocol is based on the Control Unit concept defined by the GDM framework and description and understanding of the protocol is the main focus of the current documentation.
Custom Application – This is a front end application working with the Remote Manager that operates with the managed devices. It uses the common Device Management Interface (provided by GDM) to work with Rest-provided Devices in the same way it would work with any other protocol devices like OSGi, TR069, OMADM and J2ME devices.
Device Management Interface – This is a common generic interface provided by the GDM framework. It allows Applications to work with diverse types of devices in a unified way regardless of the device management protocol and specific management functionality.