Key concepts
Internet of Things (IoT)
A collective term for the physical objects connected to the internet (directly or indirectly) that can exchange data without user involvement.
A Thing in the Internet of Things. It is a processing unit capable of connecting to the internet and exchanging data with the cloud. Devices are often called smart devices or connected devices. They communicate telemetry and state data.
Telemetry
All event data (for example, measurements about the environment) sent from devices to the cloud. This data is called telemetry event data. You can use Google Cloud Smart Analytics to analyze it.
An arbitrary, user-defined data blob that describes the device's current status. Device state data can be structured or unstructured. It flows only in the device-to-cloud direction.
An arbitrary, user-defined data blob used to modify a device's settings. Configuration data can be structured or unstructured. It flows only in the cloud-to-device direction.
A device container with shared properties. You register a device with a service (like ClearBlade IoT Core) to manage it.
Device manager
The service you use to monitor device health and activity, update device configurations, and manage credentials and authentication.
An industry-standard IoT protocol (Message Queue Telemetry Transport). MQTT is a publish/subscribe (Pub/Sub) messaging protocol.
Components
ClearBlade IoT Core’s main components are the device manager and protocol bridges.
A device manager registers devices with the service, so you can monitor and configure them.
MQTT and HTTP protocol bridges are used by devices to connect to the Google Cloud Platform.
Device telemetry data is forwarded to a Google Cloud Pub/Sub topic, which can be used to trigger Google Cloud Functions. You can also perform streaming analysis with Google Cloud Dataflow or custom analysis with your subscribers.
Quotas and limits
ClearBlade IoT Core enforces quotas and limits on a per-project basis.