Why IBM WIoT platform use http in new firmware download?

0
votes

Watson IoT platform in IBM Bluemix platform is capable of manage devices and update the firmware. The process for updating firmware is that the platform sends a MQTT message to tell the registered devices there is a new version, then the devices download the new version via http.

My questions are:

  1. in the process of device registration, is that both the device and the platform are client of the MQTT broker, doesn't the WIoT platform also acts as the broker? where is the broker? Are the devices and the platform in a pub-sub relationship?
  2. Why not let the devices subscribe to a topic to get the firmware? What are the benefits of using http to download the firmware?
1
ibm-cloudwatson-iot

1 Answers

1
votes
  1. The WIoTP is the MQTT broker. A device which is managed connects over MQTT to the WIoTP and publishes a message telling the WIoTP 'I am managed and I support these types of actions'. This enables a user to initiate these types of actions against that device using the WIoTP APIs.
  2. The WIoTP isn't actually hosting the firmware to be downloaded. For the device to download the firmware over MQTT would mean that the firmware would have had to be uploaded to the WIoTP somewhere.