Subject: [core] Observe for POST method

From: Karen Elisabeth Egede Nielsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 09:43:07 +0000

Hi Core wg, Chairs

Have it ever been considered to support the observe option for POST?

Background:

We are in the situation where we would like for our IoT application layer to use the CoAP POST method over CoAP/UDP as a "transfer layer" operation. Thus being able to rely on the CoAP/UDP stack with OSCORE/DTLS and its continuous evolutions (e.g. FASOR) for end-to-end communication.

At this point in time we would not like to port the application layer to integrate/operate in full through the CoAP RESTFul services. Rather we would like to operate the application by interchanging the application layer data units (APDUs) through the CoAP POST method with the URI identifying the target application layer.

To get the most efficient operation it is of interest to support piggyback of responses as well as to have unsolicited APDUs (e.g. event channel) be transferred by means of separate responses
as it would be possible had the observe option been standardized to be usable also with the POST request.

BR, Karen Nielsen

Karen E E Nielsen
System Architect
Technology Software
Kamstrup A/S