Enable and Manage EI Agents – Cisco Internet of Things (IoT)

Enable and Manage EI Agents

Cisco Edge Intelligence is enabled by installing the EI agent software on your Cisco network devices. The EI agent is a Cisco IOx app that runs on Cisco network devices such as the IR809, IR829, IR1101, and IC3000.

In this release, enable the EI agent on your network devices using the Cisco Kinetic Gateway Management Module (GMM), Cisco Field Network Director (FND), Cisco IoT Operations Dashboard (OD), or the Local Manager. EI agent details cannot be modified from EI.

Table 7-3 details the steps for enabling EI agents.

Table 7-3 Steps for Enabling EI Agents

Asset Management Workflow

To integrate IoT edge data into applications, you must first extract the data from assets. The main steps are as follows:

Step 1. Add an asset type. An asset type is a template that defines the type of business asset and sensor attached to it.

• Configure the connection settings. Connection settings define how the associated assets connect to the EI agent running on a network device.

• Create a data model. The data model defines the format of the data being generated from assets (how the data is represented in the asset).

• Test and verify the data model. The data model can be tested before saving it.

• Save the asset type.

Step 2. Add assets:

• Assets are physical instances that will be attached to a gateway.

• Asset instances are assigned to an asset type to define the connection settings and data model.

• Asset details and custom attributes values are also added.

Step 3. Map the asset to the associated EI agent.

Step 4. Map physical instances of assets to their attached gateways.

Add Data Destinations

Add data destinations to define where data policies send data, such as Azure IoT or MQTT. The data destination defines the connection details.

A destination must be set before you can design and deploy data policies.

Add an MQTT Server Destination

EI has customized screens for specific MQTT-based cloud destinations such as IBM Watson and SAG Cumulocity IoT based on the MQTT parameters typically required for those implementations. A generic MQTT destination can be used for different configurations.

For example, a SAG Cumulocity destination that requires TLS and peer verification can be configured in EI. You can use a generic MQTT connection, however, to connect to a SAG Cumulocity IoT instance without TLS. For generic MQTT connections, make sure the configuration matches the destination instance requirements such as parameters, message format, and so on.

To add an MQTT Server destination, complete the required fields.

Step 1. From the left menu, click Data Destinations.

Step 2. In the right pane, click Add Data Destination and select MQTT.

Step 3. Complete the fields in the Add Data Destination – MQTT Broker page and click Save.

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