Overview
Zetta is an API-first platform for the Internet of Things (IoT). This is a general overview of core concepts Zetta developers need to know.
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Open source - Zetta is an open source Node.js based platform for the internet of things. It's a complete toolkit for generating HTTP APIs for devices.
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Elegant - Using JavaScript, Zetta developers express devices as state machines using an elegant and expressive syntax. Zetta is a completely Node.js based framework that is cross platform, and easily deployable to multiple cloud services.
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API driven - Zetta generates a consistent Hypermedia HTTP API for devices modeled in JavaScript. Our HTTP APIs are expressed using the Siren specification.
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Real time - Zetta exposes websocket endpoints to stream real time events out of the Zetta system. This paradigm of merging Hypermedia with websocket streaming is also known as Reactive Hypermedia.
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Protocol agnostic - Zetta can support almost all device protocols, and mediate them to HTTP.
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Persistent connections - Zetta can create persistent connections between servers to expose APIs in new and unique ways. You can peer a Zetta server in your home with a server in the cloud, and allow for access to devices on the open internet.
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App creation - Zetta allows you to write stateless applications that live in the server itself. You can query for devices, and wire up interactions between them in these applications. The apps run consistently whether or not your hub has internet connectivity.
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Query and notification - Zetta has a robust query system that allows you to not only search for devices, but also subscribe to websockets to be notified when new devices come online that fulfill the query. The queries have a SQL-like syntax that makes it easy to wrangle devices in the API, and Zetta itself.
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Consistent interfaces - Built from the ground up, Zetta solves specific problems around generating consistent interfaces for devices.
The Zetta server is the highest level of abstraction in Zetta. The Zetta server contains Drivers, Scouts, Apps, and Server Extensions. A Zetta server will typically run on a hardware hub such as a BeagleBone Black, Intel Edison, or Raspberry Pi. The server itself coordinates interactions between all of the contained components to communicate with devices, and generate HTTP APIs that an API consumer can interact with.
Zetta scouts serve as a discovery mechanism for devices that may be on the network, or require system resources to speak a specific protocol. Scouts will search for devices on a particular protocol, and report back to Zetta when they've been found. Scouts can also use identifying information about devices (e.g. a device's MAC address) to identify whether or not Zetta has interacted with the device before, and ensure any relevant data or security credentials are maintained when interacting with that device an additional time.
Zetta drivers are state machine representations of devices. Drivers are primarily responsible for modeling devices, and interacting with the device on the physical level. These device models are then used to generate HTTP and JavaScript APIs for use in Zetta.
Zetta follows a pluggable model for extending functionality. Most of these will be server extensions. Server extensions will deal with API management, defining addtional APIs, or even adding security to your API.
The registry is a persistence layer for Zetta. It's a small database that lives in the server context, and holds information about devices connected to the server itself.
Zetta servers allow for establishing a secure tunneled link between two servers. This connection takes care of network configurations, and firewalls that make cloud connected IoT solutions difficult to maintain.
Apps are interactions between devices written in JavaScript. Zetta allows developers to create local interactions based on sensor streams, or changes in devices. These apps will function regardless of inter-Zetta connectivity, and allow for quick response times to certain events in the system.
This section describes a typical Zetta deployment.
- One Zetta server runs on a hardware hub. This hub is typically something like a BeagleBone Black, Intel Edison, or Raspberry Pi.
- The Zetta hub connects to devices. Zetta mediates from HTTP to the particular protocols used in a deployment.
- Another Zetta server runs in the Cloud. This server uses the exact same Node.js packages as Zetta running on the hub.
- The Zetta server on the hardware hub connets to the server in the Cloud.
- Zetta then exposes an API at the Cloud endpoint for developers to consume.
APIs exist on each instance of a Zetta server. Zetta uses hypermedia to expose a walkable set of links for navigating the API from a response, and affordances for streaming and interacting with devices. Zetta APIs conform to the Siren specification. Zetta APIs allow:
- Querying for devices on a particular server
- Setting up links between servers
- Interacting with devices
- Streaming sensor data with websockets
- Registering hubless devices