Overview
A provider provides the capability to execute Edgent applications by providing implementations of various Edgent APIs. Currently supplied providers:
- DirectProvider - a minimal provider that provides the topology api direct execution using the etiao runtime. This is the provider expected to executed on devices.
- DevelopmentProvider - a development provider that is aimed at application developers, typically developing the core of an application on a laptop or workstation. It extends
DirectProvider
to add:- a development console that visualizes running applications
- control service that registers control MBeans in the platform JMX server
- automatic addition of metrics to submitted applications.
- IotProvider - includes a DirectProvider and several other services for building Edgent applications that interact with an IoT Platform hub (see Full Device Scenario). IotProvider is IoT Platform agnostic. A central abstraction is an IotDevice - an interface for a connector to a particular IoT Platform for publishing "events" and subscribing to "commands". Anyone can create an IotDevice implementation. Edgent currently comes with IotDevice implementations for:
- IBM Watson IoT Platform: IotpDevice
- General MQTT IotDevice: MqttDevice
Additional providers may be added in the future to address common requirements.