Framework for IoT Service Oriented Systems

The forth industrial revolution is here, and with it Industry 4.0, which translates in many changes to the industry. With the introduction of paradigms like Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems or Cloud Computing, the so called Smart Factories are becoming a main part of today’s manufacturing systems. The vf-OS Project, where this thesis falls, intends to be an Open Operating System for Virtual Factories where the overall network of a collaborative manufacturing and logistics environment can be managed and thus enabling humans, applications and devices to communicate and interoperate in an interconnected operative environment. This thesis intends to contribute to the vision that any kind of sensor or actuator plugged to the virtual factory network, becomes promptly accessible in the operative environment and the services that it provides can be accessed and used by any API composing the system. Finally, it also aims to prove that an IoT Service Oriented Sys-tem constituted of open software components can be of great assistance and provide numerous contributions to the emerging Industry 4.0 and consequently to the Factories of the Future. With that aim, this thesis will focus on the development of two out of five inter-connected applications that answer not only to different use case scenarios presented in the vf-OS but also provide solutions to answer a practical agriculture scenario, which uses mainly IoT devices and other cutting-edge technologies like cloud compu-ting and FIWARE

Container-based microservice architecture for local IoT services

Abstract. Edge services are needed to save networking and computational resources on higher tiers, enable operation during network problems, and to help limiting private data propagation to higher tiers if the function needing it can be handled locally. MEC at access network level provides most of these features but cannot help when access network is down. Local services, in addition, help alleviating the MEC load and limit the data propagation even more, on local level. This thesis focuses on the local IoT service provisioning. Local service provisioning is subject to several requirements, related to resource/energy-efficiency, performance and reliability. This thesis introduces a novel way to design and implement a Docker container-based micro-service system for gadget-free future IoT (Internet of Things) network. It introduces a use case scenario and proposes few possible required micro-services as of solution to the scenario. Some of these services deployed on different virtual platforms along with software components that can process sensor data providing storage capacity to make decisions based on their algorithm and business logic while few other services deployed with gateway components to connect rest of the devices to the system of solution. It also includes a state-of-the-art study for design, implementation, and evaluation as a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) based on container-based microservices with Docker. The used IoT devices are Raspberry Pi embedded computers along with an Ubuntu machine with a rich set of features and interfaces, capable of running virtualized services. This thesis evaluates the solution based on practical implementation. In addition, the thesis also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the system with respect to the empirical solution. The output of the thesis shows that the virtualized microservices could be efficiently utilized at the local and resource constrained IoT using Dockers. This validates that the approach taken in this thesis is feasible for providing such services and functionalities to the micro and nanoservice architecture. Finally, this thesis proposes numerous improvements for future iterations

Evaluation of Arrowhead Framework in Condition Monitoring Application

The technological advancement in the field of electronics and information technology is changing how industrial automation systems are built. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. However, before this prophecy on the change can manifest, new architectural solutions are needed to fully leverage the abilities brought by cheaper sensors, more advanced communication technology and more powerful processing units. The Arrowhead Framework tries to tackle this problem by providing means for Service-oriented architecture via System-of-Systems approach, where so-called application systems consume services provided by so-called core systems, which provide means for service discovery, service registration and service authorization. The goal of the thesis was to evaluate The Arrowhead Framework by developing a demo application on the edge-cloud setup used in the condition monitoring system of vibrating screens manufactured by Metso. The demo applications objective was to ease the configuration and installation of industrial Linux PC’s at the edge of the network. The methodological model for the evaluation was based on the design science research process (DSRP), which provides a model for research of IT artefacts. As a result, the Arrowhead Framework’s core features were found helpful in the problem domain, and suitable for small-scale test setup. However, the implementation of the framework was found to be low quality and lacking features from a production-ready software artefact. The found shortcomings were reported as feedback for the ongoing development process of the framework

Building Programmable Wireless Networks: An Architectural Survey

In recent times, there have been a lot of efforts for improving the ossified Internet architecture in a bid to sustain unstinted growth and innovation. A major reason for the perceived architectural ossification is the lack of ability to program the network as a system. This situation has resulted partly from historical decisions in the original Internet design which emphasized decentralized network operations through co-located data and control planes on each network device. The situation for wireless networks is no different resulting in a lot of complexity and a plethora of largely incompatible wireless technologies. The emergence of "programmable wireless networks", that allow greater flexibility, ease of management and configurability, is a step in the right direction to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings of the wireless networks. In this paper, we provide a broad overview of the architectures proposed in literature for building programmable wireless networks focusing primarily on three popular techniques, i.e., software defined networks, cognitive radio networks, and virtualized networks. This survey is a self-contained tutorial on these techniques and its applications. We also discuss the opportunities and challenges in building next-generation programmable wireless networks and identify open research issues and future research directions.Comment: 19 page

A Survey on Virtualization of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are gaining tremendous importance thanks to their broad range of commercial applications such as in smart home automation, health-care and industrial automation. In these applications multi-vendor and heterogeneous sensor nodes are deployed. Due to strict administrative control over the specific WSN domains, communication barriers, conflicting goals and the economic interests of different WSN sensor node vendors, it is difficult to introduce a large scale federated WSN. By allowing heterogeneous sensor nodes in WSNs to coexist on a shared physical sensor substrate, virtualization in sensor network may provide flexibility, cost effective solutions, promote diversity, ensure security and increase manageability. This paper surveys the novel approach of using the large scale federated WSN resources in a sensor virtualization environment. Our focus in this paper is to introduce a few design goals, the challenges and opportunities of research in the field of sensor network virtualization as well as to illustrate a current status of research in this field. This paper also presents a wide array of state-of-the art projects related to sensor network virtualization

Automated Deployment of a Microservice-based Monitoring Infrastructure

We explore the specification and the automated deployment of a monitoring infrastructure in a container-based distributed system. This result shows that highly customizable monitoring infrastructures can be effectively provided as a service, and that a key step in this process is the definition of an expandable abstract model for them. So we start defining a simple model of the monitoring infrastructure that provides an interface between the user and the cloud management system. The interface follows the guidelines of Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI), the cloud interface standard proposed by the Open Grid Forum. The definition is simple and generic and it is a first step towards the definition of a standard interface for Monitoring Services. It allows the definition of complex, hierarchical monitoring infrastructure by composing multiple instances of two basic components, one for measurement and another for data distribution,. We illustrate how the monitoring functionalities that are defined through the interface are implemented as microservices embedded in containers. The internals of each microservice reflects the distinction between core functionalities which are bound to the standard, and custom plugin modules. We describe the engine that automatically deploys a system of microservices that implements the monitoring infrastructure. Special attention is paid to preserve the distinction between core and custom functionalities, and the on demand nature of a cloud service. A proof of concept demo is available through the Docker hub and consists of two multi-threaded Java appli- cations that implement the two basic components

A Survey on Data Plane Programming with P4: Fundamentals, Advances, and Applied Research

With traditional networking, users can configure control plane protocols to match the specific network configuration, but without the ability to fundamentally change the underlying algorithms. With SDN, the users may provide their own control plane, that can control network devices through their data plane APIs. Programmable data planes allow users to define their own data plane algorithms for network devices including appropriate data plane APIs which may be leveraged by user-defined SDN control. Thus, programmable data planes and SDN offer great flexibility for network customization, be it for specialized, commercial appliances, e.g., in 5G or data center networks, or for rapid prototyping in industrial and academic research. Programming protocol-independent packet processors (P4) has emerged as the currently most widespread abstraction, programming language, and concept for data plane programming. It is developed and standardized by an open community and it is supported by various software and hardware platforms. In this paper, we survey the literature from 2015 to 2020 on data plane programming with P4. Our survey covers 497 references of which 367 are scientific publications. We organize our work into two parts. In the first part, we give an overview of data plane programming models, the programming language, architectures, compilers, targets, and data plane APIs. We also consider research efforts to advance P4 technology. In the second part, we analyze a large body of literature considering P4-based applied research. We categorize 241 research papers into different application domains, summarize their contributions, and extract prototypes, target platforms, and source code availability.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (COMS) on 2021-01-2

Supporting Cyber-Physical Systems with Wireless Sensor Networks: An Outlook of Software and Services

Sensing, communication, computation and control technologies are the essential building blocks of a cyber-physical system (CPS). Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a way to support CPS as they provide fine-grained spatial-temporal sensing, communication and computation at a low premium of cost and power. In this article, we explore the fundamental concepts guiding the design and implementation of WSNs. We report the latest developments in WSN software and services for meeting existing requirements and newer demands; particularly in the areas of: operating system, simulator and emulator, programming abstraction, virtualization, IP-based communication and security, time and location, and network monitoring and management. We also reflect on the ongoing efforts in providing dependable assurances for WSN-driven CPS. Finally, we report on its applicability with a case-study on smart buildings

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version