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Glossary

Key terms and definitions used across the Soracom platform

A

APN
Access Point Name — the network identifier that cellular devices use to connect to a specific carrier's data network.

C

CoAP
Constrained Application Protocol — a lightweight HTTP-like protocol designed for resource-constrained IoT devices and networks.

D

DTLS
Datagram Transport Layer Security — an encryption protocol that secures UDP traffic, commonly used for CoAP over cellular networks.

E

eSIM
Embedded SIM — a programmable SIM built into device hardware that can be provisioned remotely without a physical card.

I

ICCID
Integrated Circuit Card Identifier — a unique serial number printed on every SIM card.
IMEI
International Mobile Equipment Identity — a unique 15-digit number that identifies a specific cellular device hardware.
IMSI
International Mobile Subscriber Identity — a unique identifier stored on a SIM card that identifies the subscriber to the cellular network.
IPsec
Internet Protocol Security — a protocol suite that encrypts and authenticates IP network traffic, commonly used for site-to-site VPN connections.

J

JWT
JSON Web Token — a compact, URL-safe token format used for authentication and secure information exchange between systems.

L

LoRaWAN
A low-power, wide-area networking protocol designed for wireless battery-operated devices.
LTE-M
LTE for Machines (Cat-M1) — a low-power cellular network technology optimized for battery-operated IoT devices with extended range and power-saving features.

M

MQTT
Message Queuing Telemetry Transport — a lightweight publish-subscribe messaging protocol commonly used for IoT device-to-cloud communication.

N

NB-IoT
Narrowband IoT (Cat-NB1) — an ultra-low-power cellular technology with deep indoor coverage, designed for static sensors and meters.

P

PSK
Pre-Shared Key — a shared secret used to establish encrypted connections without certificate exchange.

S

SIM
Subscriber Identity Module — a smart card used in mobile devices to store user data and authenticate to the network.
Soracom Air
The platform's core cellular connectivity service providing global multi-carrier SIM provisioning and session management.
Soracom Arc
A virtual SIM service using WireGuard that connects devices to the Soracom platform over WiFi or Ethernet without a physical SIM card.
Soracom Beam
A protocol conversion and forwarding service that routes device data to cloud endpoints while handling TLS termination and credential injection.
Soracom Endorse
A SIM-based authentication service that generates signed JWT tokens to verify device identity for application-layer authentication.
Soracom Funnel
A direct cloud delivery service with built-in adapters for AWS IoT, Azure Event Hubs, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, and Amazon Kinesis.
Soracom Gate
A service that enables direct device-to-device communication within a VPG, creating a virtual LAN across cellular connections.
Soracom Harvest
A built-in data storage and visualization service that collects device telemetry and files without requiring external infrastructure.
Soracom Junction
A traffic inspection service that mirrors and redirects device traffic for real-time monitoring and security analysis.
Soracom Krypton
A credential provisioning service that uses SIM identity to issue temporary cloud service credentials without pre-loading secrets on devices.
Soracom Lagoon
A managed Grafana-based dashboard and alerting service for visualizing and monitoring IoT device data.
Soracom Napter
An on-demand remote access service that creates temporary port forwarding to cellular devices without requiring static IP addresses.
Soracom Orbit
An inline data transformation service that executes WebAssembly modules at the network edge to process device data in-flight.
Soracom Peek
A packet capture service that records network traffic from cellular devices and exports it in pcap format for analysis.
Soralet
A WebAssembly module deployed to Soracom Orbit that transforms device data in-flight before it reaches its destination.

V

VPG
Virtual Private Gateway — an isolated private network on Soracom that provides private IP addressing and connectivity to backend infrastructure.

W

WASM
WebAssembly — a binary instruction format that runs at near-native speed, used by Soracom Orbit to execute data transformation logic at the network edge.
Webhook
An HTTP callback mechanism that sends real-time data to a specified URL when an event occurs.
WireGuard
A modern VPN protocol that creates secure tunnels using minimal code and high performance, used by Soracom Arc for virtual connectivity.
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