# iot-data ## Description IoT data enables secure, bi-directional communication between Internet-connected things (such as sensors, actuators, embedded devices, or smart appliances) and the Amazon Web Services cloud. It implements a broker for applications and things to publish messages over HTTP (Publish) and retrieve, update, and delete shadows. A shadow is a persistent representation of your things and their state in the Amazon Web Services cloud. Find the endpoint address for actions in IoT data by running this CLI command: > `aws iot describe-endpoint --endpoint-type iot:Data-ATS` The service name used by [Amazon Web ServicesSignature Version 4](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/signature-version-4.html) to sign requests is: *iotdevicegateway* . #### NOTE For production code it is strongly recommended to use the custom endpoint for your account (retrievable via the iot describe-endpoint command) to ensure best availability and reachability of the service. The default endpoints (intended for testing purposes only) can be found at [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/iot-core.html#iot-core-data-plane-endpoints](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/iot-core.html#iot-core-data-plane-endpoints) ## Available Commands * [delete-connection](delete-connection.md) * [delete-thing-shadow](delete-thing-shadow.md) * [get-connection](get-connection.md) * [get-retained-message](get-retained-message.md) * [get-thing-shadow](get-thing-shadow.md) * [list-named-shadows-for-thing](list-named-shadows-for-thing.md) * [list-retained-messages](list-retained-messages.md) * [list-subscriptions](list-subscriptions.md) * [publish](publish.md) * [send-direct-message](send-direct-message.md) * [update-thing-shadow](update-thing-shadow.md)