In my setup I used UDP because making SOAP or REST calls was slower and less stable because of my unstable internet connection, then I bridged with a Windows service (that I also used for parsing the message) to Azure. But my new plan was to do all the parsing with the Edison and eventually shift from UDP to ZigBee (using the shield or an XBee board) . I connect the Edison through the Automation add on module box that has a serial port, so not directly to the panel. The protocol has matched so far, had some issues with the checksum but I worked around that by using whatever is between a start LF and the next start LF (not really elegant). If that is what you mean by ICD (I used the GE Security Automation Protocal document I found along with some VB code couple of years ago)!