As announced by Google, the Google Cloud IoT Core service is scheduled to be retired on August 16, 2023.

Accordingly, Soracom Beam support for Google Cloud IoT Core will end on August 16, 2023. This change will apply to the Soracom Beam MQTT entry point.

As announced in July 2021, the Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 was scheduled to be discontinued on January 20, 2022, with any Beam MQTT configurations still using this version to be migrated to the newer version 201912.

However, during the process of migrating existing Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point configurations, a number of customers reported unexpected communication instability with version 201509. As a result, we have decided to temporarily postpone the discontinuation and to amend our support policy for this version.

The updated policy is as follows:

• Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 will remain available for use for the time being, and will instead be deprecated on August 1, 2022. After this date, version 201509 will continue to be available for use, however Soracom will no longer guarantee connectivity with MQTT brokers.
• Technical support for version 201509 will be available until August 1, 2022. After this date, technical support this version will not longer be provided.
• The date and procedures for discontinuing version 201509 will be announced at a later date.

If you are currently using the MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 and would like to migrate to the newer version 201912, please refer to the SORACOM Beam: MQTT Entry Point documentation for migration precautions and details.

If you have any questions about the impact of these changes on your devices, please contact our support team at your earliest convenience.

Type-C Virtual Private Gateways (VPG) will be deprecated on July 31, 2021. After this date, you will no longer be able to create a Type-C VPG.

Customers with existing Type-C VPGs may continue using their Type-C VPGs without interruption. However, please note that some VPG features such as SORACOM Peek packet capture are only available with newer Type-E and Type-F VPGs.

As you will no longer be able to create Type-C VPGs, you may use one of the following alternatives:

• Customers who require the private network connectivity services of SORACOM Canal, Door, or Direct in order to connect their SORACOM Air devices to their private network, may use the newer VPG Type-F option, which provides the same capabilities of the Type-C option as well as support for additional private networking features.
• Customers who do not need private network connectivity services but would still like to maintain a dedicated gateway for their SORACOM Air devices may use the VPG Type-E option, which provides many of the same capabilities as the Type-F option at a greatly reduced cost.

For more information on the differences between each VPG type, refer to the following pages:

• Virtual Private Gateway: Overview
• Pricing & Fee Schedule: Virtual Private Gateway

The Amazon Kinesis Video Stream adapter for SORACOM Funnel, previously offered on a Limited Preview basis, will be discontinued on July 31, 2021.

SORACOM Beam, a proxy and protocol conversion service which offloads encryption forwards data from IoT devices to the cloud, provides support for multiple protocols through various entry points, such as HTTP, MQTT, TCP, and UDP entry points.

When using the MQTT entry point to forward an MQTT connection from a device to a destination MQTT broker, you are currently able to select between two Soracom platform versions: 201912 and 201509. Soracom will end support for the 201509 version on January 20, 2022.

Differences between the MQTT Entry Point Versions

For more information about differences between the 201912 and 201509 versions, refer to the SORACOM Beam: MQTT Entry Point documentation.

Updating Beam MQTT Entry Point Configurations to Version 201912

If you are currently using the 201509 version in your Beam MQTT Entry Point configuration, please note that any configurations that still use version 201509 will automatically be switched to version 201912 on January 20, 2022, once support for the previous version has ended. Depending on the configuration of the MQTT client on your device, your device may no longer be able to connect to the destination MQTT broker in order to send or receive data once this change occurs.

Please carefully review the details in the SORACOM Beam: MQTT Entry Point documentation for information on how to update your device settings and migrate your Beam configuration to version 201912 in advance, in order to avoid interruption.