Comparison between Cloud Adapters
For cloud connectivity, relayr offers two Gateway Agent components:
Both adapters provide very similar functionalities, with slight differences in their design and usage. The sections below compare various aspects of the adapters.
Device Authentication
relayr Cloud Adapter | Azure Cloud Adapter |
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You need to configure MQTT credentials to get access to a device or a device group in the relayr Cloud. Once configured, the credentials are stored in the Cloud Adapter's application configuration file. See here for details. | X.509 certificates are the primary authentication method. To use it, you need to generate a public and private signed certificate. Alternatively, for testing purposes, you can use a symmetric key generated in IoT Hub. The device authentication settings are available in the Cloud Adapter's application configuration file. See here for details. |
Data Batching and Caching
relayr Cloud Adapter | Azure Cloud Adapter |
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The adapter provides a data buffering and caching mechanism, which you can enable or disable. In this mechanism, the adapter sends data in batches at the specified reporting interval (e.g. 120 seconds) or when a given number of measurements is reached (e.g. 700 samples). With a number of configuration settings, you can cover several data batching and caching scenarios, e.g. caching only critical data, storing the database in RAM only, or enabling or disabling the data compression. See here for details. | The adapter always sends data in batches, according to its batching, compression, and caching configuration settings. The batching and caching settings are configured for each message type separately, so you can configure them differently e.g. for measurements, alerts, and analytics events. The adapter sends data batches to the cloud, based on the timeout values you configure for each message type, and caches up to a number of data samples you set as the persistent limit. See here for details. |
Data Transport Methods
relayr Cloud Adapter | Azure Cloud Adapter |
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The adapter communicates with the cloud via an MQTT channel. | MQTT is the default transport method to communicate with IoT Hub. If needed, you can also use the websocket-mqtt , amqp , or websocket-amqp transport options. |
Device Onboarding
relayr Cloud Adapter | Azure Cloud Adapter |
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The adapter is compatible with the relayr Cloud, without pointing to any specific cloud provider, so the device onboarding mechanism is project-specific. | The adapter supports the device onboarding with help of IoT Hub. It can connect to the Device Provisioning Service for an automated onboarding. |
Performance
Both adapters send simple measurements at a similar speed. Tests have shown that the sending of complex measurements is faster for the Azure Cloud Adapter. See here for the test report.