OCF is proud to announce that one of the first OCF Universal Cloud Interface (UCI) platforms has been certified through the OCF Cloud-to-Cloud (C2C) Certification Program.
This announcement comes after the recently released OCF 2.2.0 specification, first announced in July, which included the OCF UCI and newly available C2C Certification program. One month following this announcement, OCF member company Haier Group certified its Haier Cloud. Leveraging the OCF UCI, the Haier Cloud can now communicate with other OCF UCI-Certified clouds, regardless of vendor. By achieving this significant milestone, Haier hopes to enhance its end user experienced by providing exceptional smart home services with ease of use.
The OCF UCI aims to solve today’s C2C communications challenges and foster secure vendor interoperability within the IoT ecosystem. While C2C connectivity is one of the easiest ways to achieve IoT interoperability at scale, vendors face many challenges in developing custom, proprietary APIs, wasting valuable time and resources. As an API, the OCF UCI helps the IoT industry avoid implementing and maintaining numerous proprietary or custom programming interfaces.
The existing OCF Device-to-Device Certification Program was expanded to include compliance and interoperability testing for OCF UCI cloud platforms to ensures that IoT products successfully implementing the OCF UCI can securely and easily communicate with each other.
To further simplify the development process, OCF has also developed the open source reference implementation of UCI – plgd (pronounced plugged) which is also available via the OCF GitHub. plgd supports multiple communication protocols and multitenancy, while being secure, resilient and scalable by default. The plgd open source solution supports both Client-side Cloud and Device-side Cloud usage scenarios, as well as Device-to-Cloud connectivity using the standardized OCF protocol. Product designers and developers can utilize the plgd open source solution to begin their UCI development today.
The release of the OCF UCI, first OCF Certified Cloud platforms and the plgd open source solution are a promising look into the future of IoT connectivity. Companies can now build end-to-end solutions, achieving both cross-platform and cross-domain secure IoT connectivity. As the IoT faces a continuing divide among IoT vendors, the OCF UCI and plgd encourage the IoT community to embrace a fully open, interoperable ecosystem.
For more information on the Haier Cloud C2C Certification and plgd OCF UCI reference implementation, read the official announcement. Those interested in the business scenarios and technical requirements of the OCF UCI will find a comprehensive white paper on the OCF website.
The OCF Specification Release 2.2.0, including the OCF UCI, is available for public download on the OCF Specification Page.