Getting started

This page walks you through the steps required to use ClearBlade IoT Core and introduces some key concepts.

If you've completed the Quick start, you've already done some of these steps. Review this page to ensure you're ready to use ClearBlade IoT Core.

Before you begin

1. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project. If you don't plan to keep the resources you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing one. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project.

2. Ensure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project.

Activate ClearBlade IoT from the Google Cloud Marketplace

1. Navigate to the ClearBlade IoT Core offering in the Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.

2. Click Activate.

3. Complete the forms to register your IoT Core Developer account.

4. Click Complete.

ClearBlade IoT Core introduction

This section summarizes ClearBlade IoT Core’s key features. For more information, see the ClearBlade IoT Core overview and the other pages in the Concepts section.

Device registration

For a device to connect, it must first be registered with ClearBlade IoT Core. Registration involves adding a device to a collection (the registry) and defining some essential properties. You can register a device with the ClearBlade Platform Console or REST-style API. For details, see Creating registries and devices.

Collectively, the features that allow you to register, monitor, and configure devices are called the device manager.

MQTT and HTTP protocols

ClearBlade IoT Core supports the MQTT and HTTP device connection and communication protocols. Devices communicate with ClearBlade IoT Core across an MQTT or HTTP bridge. When you create a device registry, you select protocols to enable MQTT, HTTP, or both.

MQTT is a standard publish/subscribe protocol frequently used and supported by embedded devices and is also common in machine-to-machine interactions.

HTTP is a connectionless protocol: devices do not maintain a connection to ClearBlade IoT Core with the HTTP bridge. Instead, they send requests and receive responses.

For details, see Using the MQTT bridge and Using the HTTP bridge.

Device authentication

ClearBlade IoT Core uses public key (or asymmetric) authentication:

The device uses a private key to sign a JSON Web Token (JWT). The token is passed to ClearBlade IoT Core to prove the device's identity.
The service uses the device’s public key (uploaded before the JWT is sent) to verify the device's identity.

For details, see the Creating key pairs, Using JWTs, and Device security sections.

Device control from the cloud

With ClearBlade IoT Core, you can control a device by modifying its configuration. A device configuration is an arbitrary, user-defined data blob that may or may not be structured. If your devices use MQTT, configurations are automatically propagated to them. If your devices connect over HTTP, they must explicitly request configurations.

For details, see the Configuring devices section.