About this agent

This agent is specially designed to work with the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP).

Technology

The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a specialized web transfer protocol for use with constrained nodes and constrained networks in the Internet of Things. The protocol is designed for machine-to-machine (M2M) applications such as smart energy and building automation.

Like HTTP, CoAP is based on the wildly successful REST model: Servers (e.g., industrial devices) make resources available under a URL, and clients (e.g., this agent) access these resources using methods such as GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE.

CoAP is designed to use minimal resources, both on the device and the network. Instead of a complex transport stack, it gets by with UDP on IP. A 4-byte fixed header and a compact encoding of options enable small messages that cause no or little fragmentation on the link layer. As a result, many servers can operate in a completely stateless fashion.

Related links

• Protocol specifications: CoAP Specs (opens new window).