Case Study - IPv6 based building automation solution integration into an IPv4 Network Service Provider infrastructure

The case study presents a case study describing an Internet Protocol (IP) version 6 (v6) introduction to an IPv4 Internet Service Provider (ISP) network infrastructure. The case study driver is an ISP willing to introduce a new “killer” service related to Internet of Things (IoT) style building automation. The provider and cooperation of third party companies specialized in building automation will provide the service. The ISP has to deliver the network access layer and to accommodate the building automation solution traffic throughout its network infrastructure. The third party companies are system integrators and building automation solution vendors. IPv6 is suitable for such solutions due to the following reasons. The operator can’t accommodate large number of IPv4 embedded devices in its current network due to the lack of address space and the fact that many of those will need clear 2 way IP communication channel. The Authors propose a strategy for IPv6 introduction into operator infrastructure based on the current network architecture present service portfolio and several transition mechanisms. The strategy has been applied in laboratory with setup close enough to the current operator’s network. The criterion for a successful experiment is full two-way IPv6 application layer connectivity between the IPv6 server and the IPv6 Internet of Things (IoT) cloud

Implementation and Evaluation of the Enhanced Header Compression (IPHC) according to 6LoWPAN Network

6LoWPAN defines how to carry Ipv6 packet over IEEE 802.15.4 low power wireless or sensor networks. Limited bandwidth, memory and energy resources require a careful application of Ipv6 in a LoWPAN network. The aim is to develop personal networks, mainly sensor based, that can be integrated to the existing wellknow network infrastructure by reusing mature and wideused technologies. IPv6 has been chosen as network protocol because its characteristics fit to the problematic that characterize LoWPAN environment such as the large number of nodes to address and stateless address autoconfiguration. However, an IPv6 header compression algorithm is necessary in order to reduce the overhead and save space in data payload. In fact, the IEEE 802.15.4 standard defines an MTU of 128 bytes that decrease to 102 bytes considering the frame overhead, a further reduction is due to the network and transport protocols frame overhead that, in case of Ipv6 and UDP, allow to carry only 33 bytes for application data. The aim of this work is to describe and compares the proposed Ipv6 header compression mechanisms for 6LoWPAN environments

Design Considerations for Low Power Internet Protocols

Over the past 10 years, low-power wireless networks have transitioned to supporting IPv6 connectivity through 6LoWPAN, a set of standards which specify how to aggressively compress IPv6 packets over low-power wireless links such as 802.15.4. We find that different low-power IPv6 stacks are unable to communicate using 6LoWPAN, and therefore IP, due to design tradeoffs between code size and energy efficiency. We argue that applying traditional protocol design principles to low-power networks is responsible for these failures, in part because receivers must accommodate a wide range of senders. Based on these findings, we propose three design principles for Internet protocols on low-power networks. These principles are based around the importance of providing flexible tradeoffs between code size and energy efficiency. We apply these principles to 6LoWPAN and show that the resulting design of the protocol provides developers a wide range of tradeoff points while allowing implementations with different choices to seamlessly communicate

Design and Implementation of ID Based MANET Autoconfiguration Protocol

Auto-configuration protocols are used for assignment of unique IP addresses to nodes in Mobile ad hoc networks. Without the assignment of unique IP addresses, service provisioning between the nodes is not possible. Such protocols use various heuristics to ensure the uniqueness in IP address assignment; such aspects increase the overall complexity in MANET system design. Moreover the overriding role of IP address as an ID in Application layer and Locator in routing space is a bottleneck in future wireless network (FWN) design. Contemporary FWN research is focusing on ID/Locator split concept designs. In this paper we propose an ID/Locator based architecture for MANETs which also solves               auto-configuration requirements for MANETs. Our proposed architecture is an adaptation from available ID/Locator split concepts for infrastructure oriented networks for usage in MANET context. The designed protocol uses identifiers for node identification, node discovery and traffic flow between end points. The protocol support provision for running contemporary IP oriented services. We have also verified various use cases of our proposed protocol through Linux based implementation

Implementation and Evaluation of the Enhanced Header Compression (IPHC) according to 6LoWPAN Network

6LoWPAN defines how to carry Ipv6 packet over IEEE 802.15.4 low power wireless or sensor networks. Limited bandwidth, memory and energy resources require a careful application of Ipv6 in a LoWPAN network. The aim is to develop personal networks, mainly sensor based, that can be integrated to the existing wellknow network infrastructure by reusing mature and wideused technologies. IPv6 has been chosen as network protocol because its characteristics fit to the problematic that characterize LoWPAN environment such as the large number of nodes to address and stateless address autoconfiguration. However, an IPv6 header compression algorithm is necessary in order to reduce the overhead and save space in data payload. In fact, the IEEE 802.15.4 standard defines an MTU of 128 bytes that decrease to 102 bytes considering the frame overhead, a further reduction is due to the network and transport protocols frame overhead that, in case of Ipv6 and UDP, allow to carry only 33 bytes for application data. The aim of this work is to describe and compares the proposed Ipv6 header compression mechanisms for 6LoWPAN environments

IETF standardization in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT): a survey

Smart embedded objects will become an important part of what is called the Internet of Things. However, the integration of embedded devices into the Internet introduces several challenges, since many of the existing Internet technologies and protocols were not designed for this class of devices. In the past few years, there have been many efforts to enable the extension of Internet technologies to constrained devices. Initially, this resulted in proprietary protocols and architectures. Later, the integration of constrained devices into the Internet was embraced by IETF, moving towards standardized IP-based protocols. In this paper, we will briefly review the history of integrating constrained devices into the Internet, followed by an extensive overview of IETF standardization work in the 6LoWPAN, ROLL and CoRE working groups. This is complemented with a broad overview of related research results that illustrate how this work can be extended or used to tackle other problems and with a discussion on open issues and challenges. As such the aim of this paper is twofold: apart from giving readers solid insights in IETF standardization work on the Internet of Things, it also aims to encourage readers to further explore the world of Internet-connected objects, pointing to future research opportunities

A network access control framework for 6LoWPAN networks

Low power over wireless personal area networks (LoWPAN), in particular wireless sensor networks, represent an emerging technology with high potential to be employed in critical situations like security surveillance, battlefields, smart-grids, and in e-health applications. The support of security services in LoWPAN is considered a challenge. First, this type of networks is usually deployed in unattended environments, making them vulnerable to security attacks. Second, the constraints inherent to LoWPAN, such as scarce resources and limited battery capacity, impose a careful planning on how and where the security services should be deployed. Besides protecting the network from some well-known threats, it is important that security mechanisms be able to withstand attacks that have not been identified before. One way of reaching this goal is to control, at the network access level, which nodes can be attached to the network and to enforce their security compliance. This paper presents a network access security framework that can be used to control the nodes that have access to the network, based on administrative approval, and to enforce security compliance to the authorized nodes