The release of SiteWhere 1.5.0 Community Edition adds a number of new features to the platform along with some other refinements and bug fixes. One of the main areas addressed is tenant management with the addition of new administrative console functionality for tenant configuration. In addition, another high-performance option is now available for ingesting events via the AMQP protocol thanks to the new RabbitMQ event source. Finally, a new symbology subsystem was added to allow for the generation of symbols such as QR-Codes for SiteWhere entities such as devices and device assignments.
Introducing Web-based Tenant Configuration
Before SiteWhere 1.5.0 tenant configuration was managed by editing the tenant configuration file by hand. While a viable option, the process was error prone and made it hard to understand the many features available in the platform. SiteWhere 1.5.0 introduces a new web-based tenant configuration editor that allows tenants to be configured in the administrative application.
The tenant configuration editor is arranged hierarchically with the same general structure as the configuration schema. It allows for the editing of existing configurations that have been directly edited in the XML file for backward compatibility while supporting a much more intuitive experience going forward. Each node in the configuration is documented along with each configurable attribute. The user interface constrains attributes based on datatype so that invalid values can not be entered. Validation functionality is also provided to ensure that it is obvious in the web interface when child components are required.
The 1.5.0 release also adds the concept of staging to SiteWhere tenant configuration. After editing the tenant configuration, the new changes are staged in a separate file from the running tenant configuration. The next time the tenant is restarted, the staged configuration takes the place of the existing one and becomes the active configuration.
RabbitMQ Event Source Support
We have received a number of requests for integrating SiteWhere with RabbitMQ to allow another high-performance option for ingesting events. SiteWhere 1.5.0 adds a new RabbitMQ event source that uses the RabbitMQ Java drivers to connect to an instance and consume events via the AMQP protocol. Characteristics such as the number of consumer threads can be configured to maximize performance.
Symbology Management and QR-Code Support
It is a common requirement to have symbols that represent devices or other managed entities. These can include barcodes, QR-Codes, or even custom labels with images and other symbolism. SiteWhere 1.5.0 adds a new symbol generator manager that allows various types of symbols to be configured for SiteWhere entities. The first symbology plugin supports generating QR-Codes for sites, specifications, devices, and assignments.
The symbols are generated dynamically and can be accessed via the SiteWhere REST services. For instance, if you have a custom application and need to be able add QR-Codes to the web application or product packaging, a call to the REST service will provide the QR-Code image. Since the QR-Code plugin is configurable within the new tenant configuration manager, the look-and-feel of the code (size, color, etc) can be customized on a per-tenant basis.
Video Covering 1.5.0 Features
We have also added a new video to the SiteWhere YouTube channel covering the 1.5.0 features. Take a look at the video, then download SiteWhere 1.5.0 CE to try the new features out yourself!
Cheers!
The SiteWhere Team
