Devices
The current web is filled with data, but most of it is based on human usage (search results), financial information, weather, and human manual input. The power of Exosite’s ONE Platform is getting real-world physical information from devices. The term ‘device’ is used loosely, really anything that can run software and has a web connection or is connected through a gateway system to the web can be a device. A PC, a mobile phone, an embedded electronic device (micro-controllers, etc), business intelligence software on a server, a network of sensors, industrial protocol networks, could all be a device sending and receiving data from the ONE Platform.
Portals includes a user interface to manage and visualize the devices (a client) sending data to the One Platform (server). Before a client can send data or receive data, it needs to be setup as a device in Portals. Each device has a unique CIK (Client Interface Key) number that identifies it to the platform. Device alias are Data Sources, individual streams of data.
- CIK
- Client Interface Key. A secret unique identifier number for a device to the platform.
- Name
- Arbitrary name provided to identify the device to a user.
- Type
- Exosite supports a number of communication protocols and some custom devices. The ‘Type’ field determines how this device is communicating with the One Platform.
- Location
- Arbitrary location provided to help identify device to user. Examples: Office, Factory, North Field, etc.
- ID
- The ID field is a specific identifier number, much like the CIK but only used for some device types.
- Timezone
- The timezone for the given device. Important for recording time stamps and providing accurate time based values to the user. Should be specific to the location of the device, not the user.
- Alias
- A reference of a specific data source of that device. Most commonly an alias is a register.
The devices page shows a table of all devices registered for a specific portal. Besides allowing the user to click on a device to see the device configuration popup, there are a couple of columns to point out here.
| Active | Shows whether the device has reported anything in the past 120 seconds |
| Last Reported Time | The last time anything was reported from the device |
| Data Sources | Total number of data sources |
| Last Event | The time and date for the last event based on any data source of that device., including a link to that event |
Clicking on a device will open it’s pop-up box. This shows all of the specifics about the device setup, it’s list of data sources (alias). Deleting a device is also possible here. Clicking on a data source opens up another pop-up about Data Information where you can see the data log. To add a data source for a specific device, go to the Data page on navigation menu to get to the Data Sources page.
Adding a new device is simple and starts by going to the ‘Devices’ page.
1. Click the Add Device button. (Shown with red arrow below)
2. A Device Setup popup window will guide you through the setup process. Select the appropriate device type, device timezone, and provide a descriptive location value. Click the ’Continue’ button to continue.
A note about device types. The device type provides for different protocols and custom devices that Exosite’s One Platform supports.
3. Give the device a name, verify the information from the previous step, and click ‘Submit’ to complete the process. If you need to go back, click the ‘Device Setup’ text link.
4. You should see the new device added to the device table. It likely will not have anything in the ‘Last Reported Time’ column, will have ’0′ data sources, and will show ‘No’ for activity. You can now start using this device.
