Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Context-aware Authorization in Highly Dynamic Environments

Highly dynamic computing environments, like ubiquitous and pervasive computing environments, require frequent adaptation of applications. Context is a key to adapt suiting user needs. On the other hand, standard access control trusts users once they have authenticated, despite the fact that they may reach unauthorized contexts. We analyse how taking into account dynamic information like context in the authorization subsystem can improve security, and how this new access control applies to interaction patterns, like messaging or eventing. We experiment and validate our approach using context as an authorization factor for eventing in Web service for device (like UPnP or DPWS), in smart home security

The simplicity project: easing the burden of using complex and heterogeneous ICT devices and services

As of today, to exploit the variety of different "services", users need to configure each of their devices by using different procedures and need to explicitly select among heterogeneous access technologies and protocols. In addition to that, users are authenticated and charged by different means. The lack of implicit human computer interaction, context-awareness and standardisation places an enormous burden of complexity on the shoulders of the final users. The IST-Simplicity project aims at leveraging such problems by: i) automatically creating and customizing a user communication space; ii) adapting services to user terminal characteristics and to users preferences; iii) orchestrating network capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the technical framework of the IST-Simplicity project. This paper is a thorough analysis and qualitative evaluation of the different technologies, standards and works presented in the literature related to the Simplicity system to be developed

RESTful framework for collaborative internet of things based on IEC 61850

El contenido de los capítulos 2 y 3 está sujeto a confidencialidad 161 p.En 1991, Mark Weiser formuló el paradigma de Computación Ubicua definiendo el concepto de Entorno Inteligente como un espacio físico repleto de dispositivos, muy integrados en el entorno, y con capacidades de identificación, sensorización y actuación. Internet de las Cosas (IoT) expande el ámbito de localización de estos dispositivos y servicios ubicuos, representados como cosas, de un entorno local a internet como red global. Para la implementación de estos escenarios de aplicación, la colaboración entre las cosas es uno de los principales retos de investigación. El objetivo de esta colaboración es ser capaces de satisfacer necesidades globales mediante la combinación de servicios individuales. Esta Tesis propone una arquitectura colaborativa entre las cosas desplegadas en internet.Las tecnologías alrededor de los Servicios Web SOAP/XML, adecuadas para IoT, soportan aspectos claves para un sistema colaborativo como la publicación, descubrimiento, control y gestión de eventos de los dispositivos. Como alternativa, REST ha ganado terreno en este ámbito por ser considerada una opción más ligera, sencilla y natural para la comunicación en internet. Sin embargo, no existen protocolos para descubrimiento y gestión de eventos para recursos REST. Esta Tesis aborda dicha carencia proponiendo una especificación de estos protocolos para arquitecturas REST. Otro aspecto importante es la representación, a nivel de aplicación, de las cosas distribuidas. Entre las propuestas para la estandarización de los modelos de información y comunicación en este dominio que podrían aplicarse, de manera similar, a IoT, destaca el estándar IEC 61850. Sin embargo, los protocolos de comunicación definidos por el estándar no son adecuados para IoT. Esta Tesis analiza la idoneidad del IEC 61850 para escenarios IoT y propone un protocolo de comunicación REST para sus servicios.Por último, se trata la problemática asociada a la confiabilidad que debe proporcionar una arquitectura IoT para dominios de aplicación relacionados con la salud o sistemas de seguridad funcional (Safety)

Quality assessment technique for ubiquitous software and middleware

The new paradigm of computing or information systems is ubiquitous computing systems. The technology-oriented issues of ubiquitous computing systems have made researchers pay much attention to the feasibility study of the technologies rather than building quality assurance indices or guidelines. In this context, measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality ubiquitous computing products. For this reason, various quality models have been defined, adopted and enhanced over the years, for example, the need for one recognised standard quality model (ISO/IEC 9126) is the result of a consensus for a software quality model on three levels: characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics. However, it is very much unlikely that this scheme will be directly applicable to ubiquitous computing environments which are considerably different to conventional software, trailing a big concern which is being given to reformulate existing methods, and especially to elaborate new assessment techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. This paper selects appropriate quality characteristics for the ubiquitous computing environment, which can be used as the quality target for both ubiquitous computing product evaluation processes ad development processes. Further, each of the quality characteristics has been expanded with evaluation questions and metrics, in some cases with measures. In addition, this quality model has been applied to the industrial setting of the ubiquitous computing environment. These have revealed that while the approach was sound, there are some parts to be more developed in the future

Open Home Networks: the TEAHA Approach

The current trend for home appliances is networking. Although more and more of these appliances are networked, there is not a standard way of interaction, which restrains the development of services for in-home networks. The lack of standardisation is partly due to a legacy of business interests; white goods, audio video equipment, security, and personal digital appliances all have a different background and have different business models. Rather than profound standardisation we propose secure seamless interworking of technologies, applications, and business interests. In this paper we present an architecture which is embedded in legacy technology. Our approach combines known design patterns, augments existing technology, and facilitates so-called business clusters. Further, we discuss a prototype implementation that integrates as an example OSGI, ZIGBEE, and UPNP technology with CECED (white goods) business interests. The work reported in this paper has been executed in an international industrial project: TEAHA