Before moving on to installation, take a moment to get familiar with these definitions:

Edge — Edge (sometimes referred to as SmartEdge or Edge Local Service) is the EdgeIQ software that installs on your gateway devices and allows you to integrate with and collect data from a variety of endpoint sensors and devices. This software communicates with and is managed by the EdgeIQ cloud platform.

Edgectl — This is the Edge control software used for install, uninstall, and local monitoring of the edge service

Endpoint — Endpoints can be any of a variety of devices that are attached to a gateway. Examples of endpoints may include: motion sensors, NFC tags, IP cameras, drones, routers & firewalls, thermostats, and more. Gateways can also be endpoints. Endpoints do not need to run the edge software.

Gateway — Gateways are devices installed on premise (at the edge) that will run the Edge service, ingest various protocol data, and then act on, filter, and route that data. Gateways must be IP-enabled and typically have wired (fiber, ethernet) and wireless (wi-fi, bluetooth, LTE) connectivity options.

Ingestor — Ingestors are EdgeIQ components that connect to external systems or directly to endpoint devices. EdgeIQ has many built-in ingestors (e.g. MQTT, OPC-UA server, Modbus, TCP/UDP server, SNMP poller, ICMP poller, HTTP client+server, , etc). Once configured, an ingestor can poll data, listen for data, or subscribe to a data source. The ability to poll vs listen vs subscribe depends on the protocol capabilities. For example, we use the subscribe model for MQTT Client and polling for Modbus and SNMP, while we use the stream model for TCP and UDP Server.