SAP IOT - Connecting the dots

[Former Member]

There has recently been a lot of palpable excitement , and rightly so , around Internet of Things  (IOT) . SAP has been quick to take a leap and come up with set of IOT enabling services bundled within its HANA Cloud Platform (HCP ) .

When I started to play around with SAP IOT some time ago , I found a lot of awesome stuff on internet in the form of blogs and presentations . However , what I could not find was something  that would quickly explain to

me as to how the SAP IOT paradigm works on a technical level . I have been able to figure out most of the stuff after a couple of weeks ( thanks to the awesome SDN contributors ) and am sharing it here for the benefit of impatient folks like myself .

A number of questions had popped up in my mind when I was trying to understand SAP IOT . So I am presenting this blog as a series of questions and answers  .

Question Number 1 :  I do not have an IOT device . Will I still be able to learn anything ?

Answer : Yes , even if you do not have an IOT device there is still a lot that you can learn and understand . In fact , you can gain 90 percent of knowledge around SAP IOT without  an actual device .

Question Number 2 :  OK. Is there online available that will help me learn ?

Answer : Lots of it . There is the official SAP help page that you can refer to . There is also some very good stuff on the IOT page on SDN . (I will provide the links at the end of the blog )

Question Number 3 :  So how do I start .

Answer : There are three  basic and essential steps

1. Configure messages types to define the message body and the direction of the message ( from device , to device , bidirectional )
2. Configure device type . Device types will be associated with message types .
3. Create devices  . Each device will be one of the Device Types that you have defined above and thereby will be associated with a message type . Note that the devices that you create here are all virtual devices . Real devices will mapto one of these virtual devices .

Question Number 4 : What next ? How do I send messages from HANA Cloud Platform ( HCP ) to the device ?

Answer : SAP Provided a web client that will allow you to send data to devices and also receive data from them ( receiving is what you will be doing most of the time ) . You just need to enter the correct values for Device ID and message ID and

make sure that your message format matches the message configuration  .

Question Number 5 : So the messages that I receive from ( or send to ) the device , are they stored on HCP ?

Answer : Yes . These messages are stored in tables in HCP . You can read them and use the data in whichever way you want to .

Question Number 6 : Can I expose this data to a UI5 application ?

Answer : Yes you can . The data can be exposed via an XS oData service and can be consumed by a UI5 application .

Question Number 7 : How do I make a real IOT device talk to HCP .

Answer : Coming soon . As soon as I can make it work  .

Here is some great content that helped me navigate my way around SAP IOT :

https://help.hana.ondemand.com/iot/frameset.htm?ad829c660e584c329200022332f04d00.html

http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/cloud-platform/blog/2015/06/09/using-the-sap-hcp-iot-s...

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-56616