---
title: "Virtual Things"
slug: "virtual-things"
status: "update"
updated: 2024-10-23T15:27:01Z
published: 2024-10-23T15:27:01Z
canonical: "learn.servitly.com/virtual-things"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://learn.servitly.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Virtual Things

In case you don't yet have a real machine that can publish data to Servitly, or to an IoT platform integrated with Servitly, you can take advantage of the *Virtual Thing* concept, which can automatically publish data for a thing registered in the DPS you are configuring.

With this feature, you can start defining dashboards for machines that you are going to connect later on.

A Virtual Thing is based on a data source which can be one of the following types.

#### CSV File

A CSV file is read, and the data is published to a target thing.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6759e9c9-3ce3-49df-965a-7231d2d9a10a/Images/Documentation/image(293).png)

#### Thing Data Mirroring

All data published on one thing are mirrored on another one. ![](https://cdn.document360.io/6759e9c9-3ce3-49df-965a-7231d2d9a10a/Images/Documentation/image(295).png)

## Creating a Virtual Thing

To add a new *Virtual Thing*, you should:

1. Enter the *Integrations / Virtual Things* page.
2. Press the *Add Virtual Thing* button.
3. Provide the required information.
4. Press the Save button and edit the additional information.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6759e9c9-3ce3-49df-965a-7231d2d9a10a/Images/Documentation/image(296).png)

For more details about how to configure a Virtual Thing, according to the desired data source refer to the following articles:

- [CSV Data Publishing](/docs/csv-data-publishing)
- [Thing Data Mirroring](/docs/thing-data-mirroring)

## Running a Virtual Thing

When the *Virtual Thing* has been configured, you can start the data publishing. In the *Virtual Thing* list, you can click on the 3-dots menu, and then click on Start.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6759e9c9-3ce3-49df-965a-7231d2d9a10a/Images/Documentation/image(297).png)

When the Virtual Thing is running, you can Stop or Pause it.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/6759e9c9-3ce3-49df-965a-7231d2d9a10a/Images/Documentation/image(298).png)

In case of CSV Data Source, when you stop, data publishing is restored to the first row of the CSV. Instead, pausing maintains the index of the reached row.

Once started, a *Virtual Thing* continues to publish data until it is stopped or paused.

## Limitations

- For each environment you can have at maximum of **10 Virtual Things running in parallel**.
- Depending on the type of data source, there are other limitations.