Remote IoT and M2M Device Management – SORACOM Inventory
Written by: Jake Martin
Published: April 26, 2018
The team here at Soracom is very happy to announce that our remote device management service, Soracom Inventory, is now available in Public Beta.
We first offered Inventory in Limited Preview in July 2017, as a service to help IoT developers and administrators monitor connected devices in the field, remotely manage settings, execute commands and update firmware using the Soracom web console or API. As we move into Public Beta, we’re happy to share not only the service but some of the cool uses for it that we’ve found along the way.
Soracom Inventory uses the Open Mobile Alliance Lightweight M2M protocol to support remote management of networked devices. That alone adds a lot of value, and obviously, we’re big fans of LWM2M… but one of the things we noticed was that, like many cloud services, LWM2M requires individual device registration and key exchange.
When you’re working with low-memory devices, every bit counts. And when you start manufacturing at scale, provisioning devices with unique credentials can add complexity (and cost) precisely when you’re looking for efficiency.
So in addition to controlling devices, one of Inventory’s benefits is that it can work in conjunction with our wireless connectivity (SORACOM Air, for cellular or LPWA) to allow auto-registration of devices with no need to store credentials.
Auto-registration of remotely managed devices using SORACOM Air
Similarly, devices managed with SORACOM Inventory get access to the full range of capabilities available through the Soracom platform, including: efficient data transfer and protocol translation using SORACOM Beam; direct connection to cloud services using SORACOM Funnel; and data collection and visualization using SORACOM Harvest.
As with all Soracom services, pricing is provided on a pay-as-you-go model, with a one-time cost of $1.00/device and a monthly fee of $0.50/device for up to 100,000 events, and no charge for devices not in use. This model allows for rapid testing and iteration during development, with volume discounts available as a user’s network of devices grows.
We’re very happy to offer Soracom Inventory to the IoT developer community in Public Beta beginning today. We’re looking forward to your feedback and suggestions. And if need any help getting started or have any cool use cases you’d like to share, please let us know!
For full information and sample LWM2M agents for Linux (C client), Linux (Java client) and Android, please visit https://www.soracom.io/products/inventory/.
