At a Glance

An IoT Gateway does not leave the factory already tied to a specific business unit or ready to stream data. Instead, Bifrost separates hardware manufacturing, cryptographic identity provisioning, and business unit ownership so devices can be produced generically on the line and claimed later when they are deployed.

Across its life, a device moves through four stages:

Manufacturing. Prepare the hardware on the production line with a claim certificate and register its IMEI in Bifrost.
Commissioning. On first boot, the device automatically provisions its unique certificate; separately, a privileged user assigns its business unit and environment.
In the Field. Receive telemetry through your business unit's stream or API, and send commands and firmware updates to the device.
Decommissioning. Take a device out of active service when its deployment ends, or delete a record created by mistake.

The sequence below shows how these stages and actors fit together from end to end:

Manufacturing Line

IoT Gateway

Manufacturing

Load claim certificate

Commissioning

Request provisioning (claim certificate)

Issue unique device certificate

Assign Business Unit

Assign Environment

In the Field

LOOP

Publish telemetry (unique certificate)

Deliver telemetry (Stream & Data API)

Issue command / OTA update

Deliver command / OTA update

Decommissioning

Decommission device