Profile

Device Type

Type the name of the device type (up to 50 characters). This name must be unique.

Device Category

Select the applicable category, such as BILLABLE.

Manufacturer

Type the name of the manufacturer (up to 50 characters).

Product

Type the manufacturer's product name for the device type (up to 50 characters).

Model

Type the manufacturer's model number or ID for the device type (up to 100 characters).

Version

Type the manufacturer's version number or ID for the device type (up to 50 characters).

Communication options

NOTE: The term "communication options" means the same as "message queue configuration options."

Polling Interval

(Non-contactable device only) Type the number of seconds desired between polling attempts. For example, for hourly polling, type 3600.

NOTE: Devices that auto-register will always have a polling interval, so the default with the device type is not used. If another method was used to register the device and the polling interval is unspecified, it the device type default will be used.

Retry attempts before failing

If the device is contactable, type the number of attempts (after a failed attempt) that will be made to send a message to the device before the message is discarded. For example, a value of 3 will allow for four attempts (the first one that fails plus three more).

If the device is not contactable, type the number of polling cycles that will be allowed to be missed before a message is discarded. For example, a value of 3 will allow for four polling cycles to be missed (the first one that fails plus three more).

Retry Interval

(Contactable device only.) Type the number of seconds between attempts to send a message.

Best Practice for
configuring the message queue

Be very careful when defining the communication options (message queue configuration) for a device type as the settings are replicated for all devices that do not otherwise override them. Specifically, take care to avoid very short polling intervals, small retry attempts, and short retry intervals.

• Polling Interval – Smaller polling intervals generally decrease response latency, but increased the load on the server. To estimate the number of polls per second, divide the number of devices by the poll interval (in seconds). The number of polls that can be handled per second depends on the server systems and network infrastructure.

• Retry attempts before failing and Retry Interval: The retry duration should be adequate to cover any clock drift between the device systems and enterprise systems. For non-contactable devices, the retry duration is the retry attempts times the polling interval. For contactable devices, the retry duration is the retry attempts times the retry interval. Because most devices do not have time synchronization enabled, these durations should be relatively large (15 minutes or more). The only disadvantage to large retry durations is that messages may sit in the outbound queue waiting for delivery for a longer period of time.