Provisioning answers the question of how a device proves who it is the first time it connects. It covers creating an entry in the device registry, issuing credentials such as an X.509 certificate or a pre-shared key, and loading the settings the device needs, including the address of its broker or endpoint. It can happen on the production line, in a warehouse or over the air at first boot.
The design trade-off is between convenience and trust. Shipping every unit with the same password makes setup trivial and is exactly what botnets look for. Per-device keys burned into a secure element at manufacture are far safer but require a trusted factory process and a way to rotate keys later. Device identity, certificates and PKI for IoT goes into the mechanisms.
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