IoT standard protocol reaches maturity, v1.0 of OMA LightweightM2M is approved by Board of Directors
The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) announced that the popular LightweightM2M (LwM2M) version 1.0 specification has moved from Candidate Release status to Approved Release status.
The OMA Board of Directors passed the motion to move the specification to Approved status at its meeting held February 9, 2017 in Vancouver, Canada. Marking an important milestone for this specification, which is being widely deployed in the industry, the move to Approved status indicates that all features for LwM2M v1.0 have been frozen. New features on the LwM2M roadmap will be included in subsequent versions of the specification.
“I am excited to introduce the LwM2M v1.0 standard, a holistic approach to IoT device management standardisation,” said Padmakumar Subramani, principal product manager at Nokia and chairman of the Device Management Working Group at OMA.
“LwM2M exemplifies efforts of OMA to combine lower layer standards coming from 3GPP and IETF. I would invite everyone involved in developing IoT products and services to download the specification to get first-hand information on LwM2M.”
Padmakumar Subramani
OMA’s LightweightM2M (LwM2M) is a device management protocol designed for sensor networks and the demands of a machine-to-machine (M2M) environment. With LwM2M, OMA has responded to market demand for a common standard for managing lightweight and low power devices on a variety of networks necessary to realise the potential of IoT.
The LwM2M protocol features a modern architectural design based on REST, defines an extensible resource and data model and reuses and builds upon an efficient secure data transfer standard called the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). CoAP is standardised by the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) as a variation of the Internet’s HTTP.
LwM2M has been specified by a group of industry experts in OMA’s Device Management Working Group and is based on protocol and security standards from the IETF. The LwM2M specification is freely available here.
“OMA’s LwM2M v1.0 specification is the result of collaboration between a number of companies, bringing a standardised approach to critical, secure remote management capability,” said Michael Horne, deputy general manager and vice president of marketing and sales, IoT Business, ARM.
“It allows enterprises and developers to utilise trusted ecosystems and reduce time to market through implementations such as ARM® mbed™ Cloud and mbed OS, that build on the energy efficiency of CoAP. This delivers security and interoperability to constrained IoT devices in applications such as smart city, smart manufacturing and asset management.”
In addition to the LwM2M 1.0 specification itself, OMA has fostered a vibrant community of developers working with the LwM2M specification. The developer community is supported by the LwM2M Developer Toolkit.
Michael Horne
The toolkit contains a LwM2M product listing, a technical summary, a place to log issues, and information on upcoming test events and educational workshops. The toolkit also contains links to open source implementations of the LwM2M protocol including Eclipse Foundation’s Leshan and AVSystem’s Anjay.
“LwM2M is a powerful yet simple technology that fulfills the need to remotely manage IoT devices,” said Philippe Guillemette, CTO, Sierra Wireless. “This technology draws from the decades-long experience of both the mobile and Internet industries, and the IoT is positioned right at the junction of these two worlds. With the approval of version 1.0 of the specification, we can now continue to build interoperable solutions on a stable foundation.”
More than 25 companies are currently deploying LightweightM2M in products and services. Products include the ARM mbed IoT Device Platform, AVSystem’s Coiote Platform, Ericsson’s Dynamic Digital Interaction (DDI), Gemalto modules, Huawei’s OceanConnect IoT Platform, IoTerop’s IOWA LwM2M commercial stack, Microsoft’s Azure, Nokia’s IMPACT IoT Platform, Sierra Wireless’ modules, gateways and IoT platform and more.
Philippe Guillemette
“Given the proliferation of smart devices and sensors, a standard approach to device management would greatly benefit the industry and our customers,” said Cameron Coursey, vice president, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. “The data security, efficient transport and the ease of implementation make LwM2M a highly desirable protocol for AT&T’s Internet of Things. We’re working with many module and device manufactures to ensure interoperability.”
First released as a Candidate specification in 2014, LwM2M has been adopted widely in the IoT market and is positioned for rapid growth according to IDATE Digiworld.
“IDATE explored the market opportunities over four markets including automotive, utilities, building automation and logistics. The total installed base of LwM2M-enabled devices will reach over 235 million units in 2022, from less than 0.5 million units in 2015,” said Samuel Ropert, head of IoT Practice at IDATE Digiworld. “This represents a CAGR of 154% in the 2015-2022 period.”
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