Collecting endpoint profiles

Endpoint profile is a virtual identity or "passport" of the endpoint. By filtering against the data in the profiles, endpoints may be aggregated into independently managed groups. Please review the Kaa profiling design reference for more background.

This guide will familiarize you with the basic concepts of designing endpoint profiles and programming the Kaa profiling subsystem. It is assumed that you have either set up a Kaa Sandbox, or a full-blown Kaa cluster already and that you have created a tenant and an application in Kaa.

Basic architecture

The following diagram illustrates basic entities and data flows in scope of the endpoint profile management:

Endpoint profiles are generated based on the profile schema created by the developer for the application and profile data entered either by the developer or by the application user
Endpoints send their profiles to the Kaa server during the registration
The Kaa tenant developer specifies profile filters for endpoint groups using either Admin UI or REST API
Kaa Operations Server classifies endpoints into groups based on their profiles and the group profile filters

Configuring Kaa

The default profile schema installed for Kaa applications is empty. In order to make use of the Kaa profiling / identity management capabilities, you should load a profile schema that reflects the application you are designing. Think about the profile schema as of a virtual identity of your client application that will later be available to you in Kaa server.

You can configure your own profile schema using the Admin UI or REST API. For the purpose of this guide we will use a fairly abstract profile schema shown below.

{
    "type":"record",
    "name":"Profile",
    "namespace":"org.kaaproject.kaa.schema.sample.profile",
    "fields":[
        {
            "name":"id",
            "type":"string"
        },
        {
            "name":"os",
            "type":{
                "type":"enum",
                "name":"OS",
                "symbols":[
                    "Android",
                    "iOS",
                    "Linux"
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "name":"os_version",
            "type":"string"
        },
        {
            "name":"build",
            "type":"string"
        }
    ]
}

Coding

Profile updates are reported to the endpoint SDK using a profile container. The profile related API varies depending on the target SDK platform, however the general approach is the same.

Java

import org.kaaproject.kaa.client.Kaa;
import org.kaaproject.kaa.client.KaaClient;
import org.kaaproject.kaa.client.profile.ProfileContainer;
import org.kaaproject.kaa.client.DesktopKaaPlatformContext;
import org.kaaproject.kaa.schema.sample.profile.OS;
import org.kaaproject.kaa.schema.sample.profile.Profile;

// Profile is an auto-generated class based on user defined schema.
Profile profile;
// Desktop Kaa client initialization
public void init() {
    // Create instance of desktop Kaa client for Kaa SDK
    KaaClient client = Kaa.newClient(new DesktopKaaPlatformContext(),
            new SimpleKaaClientStateListener());
    // Sample profile
    profile = new Profile("id", OS.Linux, "3.17", "0.0.1-SNAPSHOT");
    // Simple implementation of ProfileContainer interface that is provided by the SDK
    client.setProfileContainer(new ProfileContainer() {
        @Override
        public Profile getProfile() {
            return profile;
        }
    });
    // Starts Kaa
    client.start();
    // Update to profile variable
    profile.setBuild("0.0.1-SNAPSHOT");
    // Report update to Kaa SDK. Force delivery of updated profile to server.
    client.updateProfile();
}

C++

#include <kaa/Kaa.hpp>
#include <kaa/profile/AbstractProfileContainer.hpp>
#include <kaa/gen/ProfileGen.hpp> // auto-generated header

using namespace kaa;

// Profile container based on AbstractProfileContainer class that is provided by the SDK
class BasicProfileContainer : public AbstractProfileContainer<Profile> {
public:
    BasicProfileContainer(const Profile &profile) : profile_(profile) { }
    
    virtual Profile getProfile() 
    {
        return profile_;
    }
    virtual void changeProfile(const Profile &profile) 
    {
        profile_ = profile;
    }
private:
    Profile profile_;
};
// Kaa client initialization based on BasicProfileContainer
void init()
{
    // Create client for Kaa SDK
    Kaa::init(0);
    IKaaClient &client = Kaa::getKaaClient();
    // Sample profile
    Profile profile;
    profile.id = "deviceId";
    profile.os_version = "3.17";
    profile.os = OS::Linux;
    profile.build = "0.0.1-SNAPSHOT";
    // Create instance of profile container
    ProfileContainerPtr container(new BasicProfileContainer(profile));
    // Set simple profile container to profile manager
    client.setProfileContainer(container);
	// Update method should be called to notify about changes in the profile.
	client.updateProfile();
    // Starts Kaa
    Kaa::start();
}

C

#include <kaa_profile.h>
#include <gen/kaa_profile_gen.h> // auto-generated header

#define KAA_EXAMPLE_PROFILE_ID "sampleid"
#define KAA_EXAMPLE_OS_VERSION "1.0"
#define KAA_EXAMPLE_BUILD_INFO "3cbaf67e"
 
kaa_context_t *kaa_context = NULL;
 
/* Assume Kaa SDK is already initialized */
 
/* Create and update profile */
kaa_profile_t *profile = kaa_profile_profile_create();

profile->id = kaa_string_move_create(KAA_EXAMPLE_PROFILE_ID, NULL);
profile->os = ENUM_OS_Linux;
profile->os_version = kaa_string_move_create(KAA_EXAMPLE_OS_VERSION, NULL);
profile->build = kaa_string_move_create(KAA_EXAMPLE_BUILD_INFO, NULL);

kaa_error_t error_code = kaa_profile_manager_update_profile(kaa_context->profile_manager, profile);
 
/* Check error code */
 
profile->destroy(profile);

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Coding