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IoT Device Simulator | 🚧 Feature request | 🐛 Bug Report | ❓ General Question

Note: If you want to use the solution without building from source, navigate to Solution Landing Page.

Table of Content

• Solution Overview
• Architecture Diagram
• AWS CDK and Solutions Constructs
• Customizing the Solution
  • Prerequisites for Customization
  • Unit Test
  • Build
  • Deploy
• License

Solution Overview

IoT is a sprawling set of technologies and use cases that has no clear, single definition. Despite enormous advances, we’ve only seen a fraction of what the Internet revolution has yet to deliver. That’s because many powerful technological forces are now converging — poised to magnify, multiply, and exponentially increase the opportunities that software and the Internet can deliver by connecting the devices, or “things”, in the physical world around us. Each of these devices is able to convert valuable information from the real world into digital data that provides increased visibility to businesses of how users interact their products or services. The backend services required to process and uncover these valuable insights can be expensive to prove without a large pool of physical devices for full end to end integration setup or time-consuming development of scripts.

Often times, teams constantly have the need to quickly replicate the behavior of their devices interacting with AWS IoT to assess their backend services. The IoT Device Simulator solution is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based engine designed to enable customers to get started quickly assessing AWS IoT services without an existing pool of devices. The IoT Device Simulator leverages managed, highly available, highly scalable AWS-native services to effortlessly create and simulate thousands of connected devices that are defined by the customer.

For more information and a detailed deployment guide, visit the IoT Device Simulator solution page.

Note: This solution is designed to simulate device data for testing. It is not recommended for use in production environments.

Architecture Diagram

AWS CDK and Solutions Constructs

AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) and AWS Solutions Constructs make it easier to consistently create well-architected infrastructure applications. All AWS Solutions Constructs are reviewed by AWS and use best practices established by the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This solution uses the following AWS Solutions Constructs:

• aws-cloudfront-s3
• aws-lambda-stepfunctions

In addition to the AWS Solutions Constructs, the solution uses AWS CDK directly to create infrastructure resources.

Customizing the Solution

Prerequisites for Customization

• Node.js 18.x or later

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/aws-solutions/iot-device-simulator.git
cd iot-device-simulator
export MAIN_DIRECTORY=$PWD

2. Declare environment variables

export REGION=aws-region-code # the AWS region to launch the solution (e.g. us-east-1)
export DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX=my-bucket-name # bucket where customized code will reside, randomized name recommended
export SOLUTION_NAME=my-solution-name # the solution name
export VERSION=my-version # version number for the customized code

Note: When you define DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX, a randomized value is recommended. You will need to create an S3 bucket where the name is <DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX>-<REGION>. The solution's CloudFormation template will expect the source code to be located in a bucket matching that name

When creating and using buckets it is recommeded to:

• Use randomized names or uuid as part of your bucket naming strategy.
• Ensure buckets are not public.
• Verify bucket ownership prior to uploading templates or code artifacts.

Unit Test

After making changes, run unit tests to make sure added customization passes the tests:

cd $MAIN_DIRECTORY/deployment
chmod +x run-unit-tests.sh
./run-unit-tests.sh

Build

cd $MAIN_DIRECTORY/deployment
chmod +x build-s3-dist.sh
./build-s3-dist.sh $DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX $SOLUTION_NAME $VERSION

Deploy

• Deploy the distributable to the Amazon S3 bucket in your account. Make sure you are uploading all files and directories under deployment/global-s3-assets and deployment/regional-s3-assets to <SOLUTION_NAME>/<VERSION> folder in the <DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX>-<REGION> bucket (e.g. s3://<DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX>-<REGION>/<SOLUTION_NAME>/<VERSION>/). CLI based S3 command to sync the buckets is:

  aws s3 sync $MAIN_DIRECTORY/deployment/global-s3-assets/ s3://${DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX}-${REGION}/${SOLUTION_NAME}/${VERSION}/
  aws s3 sync $MAIN_DIRECTORY/deployment/regional-s3-assets/ s3://${DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX}-${REGION}/${SOLUTION_NAME}/${VERSION}/
  

• Get the link of the iot-device-simulator.template uploaded to your Amazon S3 bucket.
• Deploy the IoT Device Simulator solution to your account by launching a new AWS CloudFormation stack using the S3 link of the iot-device-simulator.template.

CLI based CloudFormation deployment:

export INITIAL_USER=name@example.com # The email used to sign in web interface.
export CF_STACK_NAME=iot # name of the cloudformation stack

aws cloudformation create-stack \
   --profile ${AWS_PROFILE:-default} \
   --region ${REGION} \
   --template-url https://${DIST_BUCKET_PREFIX}-${REGION}.s3.amazonaws.com/${SOLUTION_NAME}/${VERSION}/iot-device-simulator.template \
   --stack-name ${CF_STACK_NAME} \
   --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM CAPABILITY_AUTO_EXPAND \
   --parameters \
        ParameterKey=UserEmail,ParameterValue=${INITIAL_USER}

Collection of operational metrics

This solution collects anonymous operational metrics to help AWS improve the quality and features of the solution. For more information, including how to disable this capability, please see the implementation guide.

License

Copyright Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0