Lightweight IoT middleware for rapid application development

Sensors connected to the cloud services equipped with data analytics has created a plethora of new type of applications ranging from personal to an industrial level forming to what is known today as Internet of Things (IoT). IoT-based system follows a pattern of data collection, data analytics, automation, and system improvement recommendations. However, most applications would have its own unique requirements in terms of the type of the smart devices, communication technologies as well as its application provisioning service. In order to enable an IoT-based system, various services are commercially available that provide services such as backend-as-a-service (BaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted in the cloud. This, in turn, raises the issues of security and privacy. However there is no plug-and-play IoT middleware framework that could be deployed out of the box for on-premise server. This paper aims at providing a lightweight IoT middleware that can be used to enable IoT applications owned by the individuals or organizations that effectively securing the data on-premise or in remote server. Specifically, the middleware with a standardized application programming interface (API) that could adapt to the application requirements through high level abstraction and interacts with the application service provider is proposed. Each API endpoint would be secured using Access Control List (ACL) and easily integratable with any other modules to ensure the scalability of the system as well as easing system deployment. In addition, this middleware could be deployed in a distributed manner and coordinate among themselves to fulfil the application requirements. A middleware is presented in this paper with GET and POST requests that are lightweight in size with a footprint of less than 1 KB and a round trip time of less than 1 second to facilitate rapid application development by individuals or organizations for securing IoT resources

A Role-Based Approach for Orchestrating Emergent Configurations in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned as a global network of connected things enabling ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With estimations of billions of sensors and devices to be connected in the coming years, the IoT has been advocated as having a great potential to impact the way we live, but also how we work. However, the connectivity aspect in itself only accounts for the underlying M2M infrastructure. In order to properly support engineering IoT systems and applications, it is key to orchestrate heterogeneous 'things' in a seamless, adaptive and dynamic manner, such that the system can exhibit a goal-directed behaviour and take appropriate actions. Yet, this form of interaction between things needs to take a user-centric approach and by no means elude the users' requirements. To this end, contextualisation is an important feature of the system, allowing it to infer user activities and prompt the user with relevant information and interactions even in the absence of intentional commands. In this work we propose a role-based model for emergent configurations of connected systems as a means to model, manage, and reason about IoT systems including the user's interaction with them. We put a special focus on integrating the user perspective in order to guide the emergent configurations such that systems goals are aligned with the users' intentions. We discuss related scientific and technical challenges and provide several uses cases outlining the concept of emergent configurations.Comment: In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Internet of Agents @AAMAS201

Lightweight IoT platform for rapid application development and deployment

Sensors connected to the cloud services equipped with data analytics has created a plethora of new type of applications from personal to industrial levels. In other words, the smart devices, the network, and the data come together to form Internet-of-Things (IoT). In this context, IoT provides an opportunity to increase efficiency in how things are done. IoT-based system normally follows a pattern of data collection, data analytics, automation, and system improvement recommendations. However, most application would have its own unique requirements in terms of smart devices, communication technologies as well as its application provisioning service. Although various services are commercially available that provide services such as Backend-as-a-service (BaaS) and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted on the cloud, this, in turn, raises the issues of security and privacy. Individuals and organizations alike would like to protect their sensitive information for various reasons. Therefore, in this project, a lightweight and secure IoT platform is proposed. The platform consists of Raspberry Pi as an IoT device with a pre-configured image that contains hotspot module, user login, PHP, Apache server, MySQL database, Node.js, and Domain Name Server (DNS). The platform also contains a middleware that provides Application Programming Interfaces (API) for both the sensor layer and the application layer. Moreover, the platform has a Graphical User Interface (GUI) designed using Angular to provide management tools and to enable data display sent by the IoT device for the end-user. The middleware is designed using JavaScript programming language in Node.js development framework to provide a lightweight and scalable features which is proven to save up to 45% of memory. The middleware is connected to NoSQL database that allows the platform to be distributed and thus, enhance security and privacy. The performance analysis of the system shows the developed platform has a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) operation which is around 600 Bytes, with the system processor not exceeding 6% of usage. It also demonstrates a reduction by 53% and 41% of byte size and time consumed, respectively, for GET operation over a Local Area Network in UTM campus

Towards Mission-Critical Control at the Edge and Over 5G

With the emergence of industrial IoT and cloud computing, and the advent of 5G and edge clouds, there are ambitious expectations on elasticity, economies of scale, and fast time to market for demanding use cases in the next generation of ICT networks. Responsiveness and reliability of wireless communication links and services in the cloud are set to improve significantly as the concept of edge clouds is becoming more prevalent. To enable industrial uptake we must provide cloud capacity in the networks but also a sufficient level of simplicity and self-sustainability in the software platforms. In this paper, we present a research test-bed built to study mission-critical control over the distributed edge cloud. We evaluate system properties using a conventional control application in the form of a Model Predictive Controller. Our cloud platform provides the means to continuously operate our mission-critical application while seamlessly relocating computations across geographically dispersed compute nodes. Through our use of 5G wireless radio, we allow for mobility and reliably provide compute resources with low latency, at the edge. The primary contribution of this paper is a state-of-the art, fully operational test-bed showing the potential for merged IoT, 5G, and cloud. We also provide an evaluation of the system while operating a mission-critical application and provide an outlook on a novel research direction.Comment: June 18th: Upload the final version as submitted to IEEE Services [EDGE] 2018 on May 16th (updated abstract and some wording, results unchanged

Towards a Model-Based Serverless Platform for the Cloud-Edge-IoT Continuum

One of the most prominent implementations of the serverless programming model is Function-as-a-Service (FaaS). Using FaaS, application developers provide source code of serverless functions, typically describing only parts of a larger application, and define triggers for executing these functions on infrastructure components managed by the FaaS provider. There are still challenges that hinder the wider adoption of the FaaS model across the whole Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum. These include the high heterogeneity of the Edge and IoT infrastructure, vendor lock-in, the need to deploy and adapt serverless functions as well as their supporting services and software stacks into their cyber-physical execution environment. As a first step towards addressing these challenges, we introduce the SERVERLEss4I0T platform for the design, deployment, and maintenance of applications over the Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum. In particular, our platform enables the specification and deployment of serverless functions on Cloud and Edge resources, as well as the deployment of their supporting services and software stacks over the whole Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum.acceptedVersio

El modelo de programación de actor aplicado a Edge Computing utilizando Calvin

Internet de las cosas (IoT) y todas las tecnologías asociadas han determinado que la computación distribuida alcance límites insospechables. A pesar de esta expansión, el desarrollo de aplicaciones en ecosistemas IoT no cumple con los requisitos específicos para estos sistemas. La pérdida de conectividad de los dispositivos, la necesidad de soportar la migración de código, la aparición de diversos errores y que los mismos no se propaguen, determinan que los desarrollos deben considerar estas dificultades. Teniendo en cuenta que el modelo de programación de actor presenta características que pueden ayudar a resolver estos problemas, se propuso utilizar este modelo para generar soluciones IoT, desarrollando aplicaciones con la entorno de aplicación Calvin. El presente trabajo analiza las ventajas de aplicar la programación de actores en ambientes IoT.XI Workshop Innovación en Sistemas de Software.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

El modelo de programación de actor aplicado a Edge Computing utilizando Calvin

Internet de las cosas (IoT) y todas las tecnologías asociadas han determinado que la computación distribuida alcance límites insospechables. A pesar de esta expansión, el desarrollo de aplicaciones en ecosistemas IoT no cumple con los requisitos específicos para estos sistemas. La pérdida de conectividad de los dispositivos, la necesidad de soportar la migración de código, la aparición de diversos errores y que los mismos no se propaguen, determinan que los desarrollos deben considerar estas dificultades. Teniendo en cuenta que el modelo de programación de actor presenta características que pueden ayudar a resolver estos problemas, se propuso utilizar este modelo para generar soluciones IoT, desarrollando aplicaciones con la entorno de aplicación Calvin. El presente trabajo analiza las ventajas de aplicar la programación de actores en ambientes IoT.XI Workshop Innovación en Sistemas de Software.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

El modelo de programación de actor aplicado a Edge Computing utilizando Calvin

Internet de las cosas (IoT) y todas las tecnologías asociadas han determinado que la computación distribuida alcance límites insospechables. A pesar de esta expansión, el desarrollo de aplicaciones en ecosistemas IoT no cumple con los requisitos específicos para estos sistemas. La pérdida de conectividad de los dispositivos, la necesidad de soportar la migración de código, la aparición de diversos errores y que los mismos no se propaguen, determinan que los desarrollos deben considerar estas dificultades. Teniendo en cuenta que el modelo de programación de actor presenta características que pueden ayudar a resolver estos problemas, se propuso utilizar este modelo para generar soluciones IoT, desarrollando aplicaciones con la entorno de aplicación Calvin. El presente trabajo analiza las ventajas de aplicar la programación de actores en ambientes IoT.XI Workshop Innovación en Sistemas de Software.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic