Cloud Annotation Service Standardizes IoT Message Schemas
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing number of IoT devices connected to cloud platforms generates varying message schemas, leading to processing burdens and making it difficult to subscribe to specific user-desired messages due to inconsistent formats.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method and system that standardizes message schemas across edge devices, allowing a cloud platform to generate customized annotation streams and filters using a web API, ensuring only authorized messages are published to designated endpoints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If messages from multiple IoT devices are accepted with varying schemas, then device connectivity and adaptability are improved, but processing burden and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an annotation service as an intermediary component between IoT devices and the cloud platform. This service receives messages from devices with varying schemas, processes and standardizes them using annotation templates, and then publishes them to the cloud platform. This mediator handles the complexity of schema variation, allowing devices to connect with different formats while the platform receives standardized messages, thus resolving the contradiction between adaptability and processing burden.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms messages by changing their parameter structure through annotation. Incoming messages with varying schemas are converted into a standardized format by adding annotation fields and restructuring data according to predefined templates. This parameter transformation allows the system to accept diverse device messages while maintaining consistent internal representation, reducing processing complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If messages with varying content schemas are processed, then support for diverse device types is improved, but message subscription difficulty increases
Solution Approach 1:
The annotation service acts as a mediator that standardizes messages before they reach the subscription system. By converting diverse device messages into a unified format with consistent field names and structures, it enables subscribers to filter and subscribe to messages based on standardized criteria rather than dealing with device-specific schemas, thus improving ease of operation while maintaining broad device support.
Solution Approach 2:
The annotation service provides a universal message format that works across all device types. By creating a common annotation structure that can represent messages from any device type, the system enables a single subscription mechanism to handle diverse message sources, making the subscription process simpler and more universal.
3Adaptability or versatility
If annotation streams and filters are generated dynamically, then message subscription flexibility is improved, but system processing load increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements message filtering at the annotation service level before messages are published to the cloud platform. By applying filters early in the message flow, the system reduces the volume of messages that need to be processed by downstream subscription services. This preliminary filtering action maintains subscription flexibility while reducing overall system processing load.
Solution Approach 2:
The annotation service extracts and processes only the necessary message attributes needed for filtering and routing before publishing messages. By extracting only the relevant information required for subscription matching and discarding or minimizing unnecessary data processing, the system maintains flexible subscription capabilities while reducing the processing load on the overall system.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are disclosed for subscribing to messages generated from a plurality of edge devices. One method comprises receiving, at a cloud platform from a plurality of edge devices, a plurality of messages that comply with a common schema and receiving, at the cloud platform from a custom application, an annotation stream request to generate at least one annotation stream and an annotation filter request to generate one or more annotation filters. The at least one annotation stream and the one or more annotation filters are then generated by the cloud platform. Based on the one or more filters, one or more of the plurality of messages are published, by the cloud platform, to the at least one annotation stream.