Web services platform with integration and interface of smart entities with enterprise applications

A method for managing data relating to a plurality of physical devices connected to one or more electronic communications networks, comprising:

• creating and managing a plurality of smart entities, each of the smart entities comprising a plurality of attributes;
• receiving inbound data from one or more enterprise applications;
• translating the inbound data into values for one or more of the plurality of attributes;
• writing the plurality of attributes to the smart entities;
• reading the plurality of attributes from the smart entities;
• translating the plurality of attributes into outbound data;
• and
• providing the outbound data to the one or more enterprise applications.

A web services platform comprising:

• an entity service configured to create and manage a plurality of smart entities, each of the smart entities comprising a plurality of attributes;
• and
• a software defined gateway configured to:
• receive inbound data from one or more enterprise applications, translate the inbound data into values for one or more of the plurality of attributes, and write the plurality of attributes to the smart entities;
• and
• read the plurality of attributes from the smart entities, translate the plurality of attributes into outbound data, and provide the outbound data to the one or more enterprise applications.

The web services platform of claim 0, wherein the plurality of smart entities comprise:

• one or more object entities each representing a physical device;
• one or more data entities each representing data generated by a corresponding physical device, each of the data entities comprising a static attribute identifying a corresponding object entity and a dynamic attribute storing a most recent value of a dynamic variable associated with the corresponding physical device;
• and
• one or more relational objects indicating relationships interconnecting the object entities and the data entities, each of the relational objects comprising a first attribute identifying a corresponding object entity and a second attribute identifying a corresponding data entity.