Managing your indoor IoT environment – Cisco DNA Spaces IoT Services – Cisco Blogs

The problem with IoT Management

IoT is a diverse realm with a myriad of devices. Successfully scaling enterprise IoT deployments has always been a challenging problem. Each device type may communicate with its own individual data specification. As a result, IoT device management usually involves elaborate vendor-specific applications to manage the overlay devices. This creates a management nightmare. Cisco eliminates this problem with a unified infrastructure which brings device vendors and application developers together to fully leverage the power of enterprise IoT through the DNA Spaces IoT Services offering.

IoT Services Components

The key components of the solution are comprised of Cisco DNA Spaces IoT Services, Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers, Cisco Access Points, and our IoT Partner Ecosystem which comprises an IoT Device Marketplace and an IoT App Store. IoT Device Marketplace allows customers to purchase devices tailored to their needs. IoT App Store allows partners to publish apps addressing customer use cases using customer devices. Together they provide a powerful solution that enables customers to leverage their existing Cisco infrastructure to unlock the true potential of their smart spaces.

Learn more about the architecture and data flow of DNA Spaces IoT Services.

Journey of an IoT Device

When a device is ordered through the IoT device marketplace, every order is issued a unique order id. This id can be used to claim all the devices in the order in IoT Services.  These claimed devices can be managed through IoT services.

In order to manage IoT devices, and IOX application needs to be installed on an access point. This can be accomplished by converting an AP into an advanced gateway from IoT Services.

DNA Spaces IoT Services is now ready to manage claimed IoT devices.

Device Discovery

Once a claimed device is turned on in a customer environment, the advanced gateway on the access points automatically discovers it. IoT services decodes each individual packet transmitted by the device and displays the data on a dashboard. Detect and Locate computes the location of the device. The decoded information with the location of the device is made available over a uniform interface for partner apps to consume over Firehose. Thus, Cisco partners are able to build apps in a true vendor-agnostic fashion, focusing more on customer outcomes. Customers are able to choose any device from the marketplace without worrying about application compatibility.

Device Management

Standard operations on the claimed devices can be managed from IoT Services while vendor-specific operations can be managed from the device vendor dashboard. Any operation performed through any of the dashboards is synced across both IoT Services as well as the vendor system. In fact, vendor dashboards can be launched from IoT Services itself.  This flexible interoperation allows customers to seamlessly use any interface and leverage the power of both IoT Services and the vendor system to their fullest.

When a beacon configuration is initiated, IoT Services automatically figures out the closest advanced gateway and routes the configuration request to that gateway.  In case of a configuration failure, retries are initiated intelligently to account for device movement.

The entire configuration history of a device can be audited through its request history. In case of a configuration failure, the request history clearly indicates the reason for the failure. This often serves as a powerful tool to identify possible setup or environmental problems.

Cisco DNA Spaces IoT Services Device management takes the pain out of configuring IoT devices. Combined with device monitoring, it serves as an essential tool to deploy and maintain smart spaces.

For More Information

To learn more about IoT Services, visit the IoT Services Configuration Guide.

To learn more about the partner ecosystem, visit the Device Marketplace

Check out our Intent-Based Networking video channel.

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