Internet of Things as a Service (iTaaS): challenges and solutions for management of sensor data on the Cloud and the Fog

Building upon cloud, IoT and smart sensors technologies we design and de- velop an IoT as a Service (iTaaS) framework, that transforms a user device (e.g. a smart phone) to an IoT gateway that allows for fast and efficient data streams transmission to the cloud. We develop a two-fold solution, based on micro-services for the IoT (users’ smart devices) and the cloud side (back-end services). iTaaS includes configurations for (a) the IoT side to support data collection from IoT devices to a gateway on a real time basis and, (b) the cloud back-end side to support data sharing, storage and processing. iTaaS provides the technology foreground to enable immediate application deployments in the domain of interest. An obvious and promising implementation of this technology is e-Health and remote health monitoring. As a proof of concept we implement a real time remote patient monitoring system that integrates the proposed frame- work and uses BLE pulse oximeter and heart rate monitoring sensing devices. The experimental analysis shows fast data collection, as (for our experimental setup) data is transmitted from the IoT side (i.e. the gateway) to the cloud in less than 130ms. We also stress the back-end system with high user concurrency (for example with 40 users per second) and high data streams (for example 240 data records per second) and we show that the requests are executed at around 1 second, a number that signifies a satisfactory performance by considering the number of requests, the network latency and the relatively small size of the Virtual Machines implementing services on the cloud (2GB RAM, 1 CPU and 20GB hard disk size)

Internet of Things data management in the cloud for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices

The use of wearable sensors and their connectivity to Internet offers significant benefits for storing sensing data that could be utilized intelligently for multiple purpose applications such as for monitoring purposes in healthcare domain. This work presents an Internet of Things (IoT) gateway service taking advantage of modern mobile devices and their capabilities to communicate with wearable Bluetooth low energy (BLE) sensors so data could be forwarded to the cloud on the fly and on real time. The service transforms a mobile platform (such as a smartphone) to a gateway allowing continuous and fast communication of data that is forwarded from the device to the cloud on demand or automatically for an automated decision making. Its features include (a) use of an internal processing mechanism for the BLE sensor signals and defines the way in which data is send to the cloud, (b) dynamic service as it has the ability to recognize new BLE sensors properties by easily adapting the data model according to a dynamic schema and (c) universal BLE devices capability that are registered automatically and are monitored on the fly while it keeps historical data that could be integrated into meaningful business intelligence. Building upon principles of service oriented design, the service takes full advantage of cloud services for processing potential big data streams produced by an ever increasing number of users and sensors. The contribution of this work is on the IoT data transmission rate that is averagely calculated to 128 milliseconds and in the experimental section we discuss that this is significantly low for real time data

Mobile platform to monitoring vital data from sensors in cloud computing

Περίληψη: Το εγχείρημα του διαδικτύου των πραγμάτων(Internet of things), σε συνδυασμό με την τεχνολογία του υπολογιστικού νέφους(cloud), ανοίγουν νέους ορίζοντες στον τομέα της υγειονομικής περίθαλψης. Η χρήση φορητών αισθητήρων και η δυνατότητα συνδεσιμότητάς τους στο διαδίκτυο παρέχουν σημαντικά οφέλη τόσο στους οργανισμούς παροχής υπηρεσιών υγείας, στους οποίους επιτρέπει την άμεση, εύκολη και αποτελεσματική παρακολούθηση των ζωτικών δεδομένων των ασθενών από όποιο σημείο και αν βρίσκονται, με αποτέλεσμα την εξοικονόμηση κόστους σε τομείς όπως αυτός του υλικού εξοπλισμού και του νοσηλευτικού προσωπικού, όσο και στους ίδιους τους ασθενείς, οι οποίοι μπορούν πλέον, φορώντας τους κατάλληλους αισθητήρες, να εκτελούν τις καθημερινές τους δραστηριότητες με άνεση και ασφάλεια. Η εφαρμογή Intelligate (Intelligent Gateway), εκμεταλλευόμενη τις δυνατότητες που προσφέρουν οι έξυπνες κινητές συσκευές (smartphones), λογισμικού android, μετατρέπει την κινητή συσκευή σε δίαυλο επικοινωνίας(Gateway) μεταξύ Bluetooth low energy(BLE) φορητών αισθητήρων και νέφους(cloud). Ειδικότερα, η εφαρμογή αυτή επιτρέπει την συλλογή, επεξεργασία και αποθήκευση ζωτικών δεδομένων που παράγουν οι BLE αισθητήρες, όπως ο καρδιακός ρυθμός , καθώς και την μεταφορά χρήσιμων πληροφοριών προς το νέφος με «έξυπνο» και δυναμικό τρόπο. Έξυπνο για το λόγω του ότι τα σήματα που θα λαμβάνονται στην συσκευή θα υπόκεινται μια εσωτερική επεξεργασία ώστε να στέλνονται στο νέφος όταν κατάσταση είναι κρίσιμη ή όταν θα το επιλέξει ο ίδιος ο χρήστης της εφαρμογής. Δυναμικό καθώς η εφαρμογή θα μπορεί να δέχεται την αναγνώριση των χαρακτηριστικών τιμών νέων BLE αισθητήρων με την συμπλήρωση ενός XML σχήματος. Τελικά, η χρήση των υπηρεσιών του υπολογιστικού νέφους, μέσω της εφαρμογής Intelligate, επιτρέπει τη λήψη, επεξεργασία και αποθήκευση δεδομένων, την καταγραφή των ενδείξεων μέτρησης των αισθητήρων σε πραγματικό χρόνο, την ενημέρωση του ασθενούς από τον γιατρό του και αρκετές επιπλέον λειτουργίες, συνδυάζοντας παρεχόμενες υπηρεσίες γενικού σκοπού(Generic enablers) και υπολογιστικούς πόρους που προσπελαύνονται διαδικτυακά και παρέχονται από υποδομές νέφους βοηθώντας συνολικά στην δια λειτουργικότητα του συστήματος. Όλα τα επίπεδα του συστήματος Intelligate επικοινωνούν αμφίδρομα μεταξύ τους, με βάση το μοντέλο της υπηρεσιοκεντρικής αρχιτεκτονικής (Service Oriented Architecture), δίνοντας στο σύστημα μας την δυνατότητα επεκτασιμότητας επιτρέποντας δηλαδή την προσθήκη στο μέλλον επιπλέον λειτουργιών, χωρίς να επηρεάζονται οι ήδη υπάρχουσες.Summarization: The idea of the Internet of things, combined with the technology of cloud computing, open new horizons in the field of healthcare. The use of wearable sensors and their possibility of connectivity to the Internet provide significant benefits not only to healthcare organizations, to which they allow a continuous, easy and efficient monitoring of the patients΄ vital data from anywhere, leading to cost savings such as equipment and nursing staff, but also to patients themselves, who can now easily and safely perform their daily activities, wearing the appropriate sensors. The Intelligent Gateway application, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by Android smartphones and their capabilities to communicate with wearable Bluetooth low energy (BLE) sensors and with the Cloud through Wireless Networks. Intelligate transform a Android platform (such as a smartphone) to a gateway allowing for continuous and fast communication of vital data with the cloud and from there the health case personnel.. In particular, this application allows the collection, processing and storage of vital data that the BLE sensors produce, such as the pulse rate, as well as the transfer of useful information to the cloud through a "smart" and dynamic way. "Smart" because there will be an internal processing of the signal that are received from BLE sensors that declares the way data is send to cloud .Dynamic because our system has the ability to recognize new characteristic values of BLE sensors by editing a XML schema . Finally, the use of cloud services, through the Intelligate application, allows the reception, processing and storage of data, the recording of the measuring indications of the sensors in real time, the information of the patient by his doctor and several additional functions, combining Generic enablers and computing resources that are accessed online and that are provided by cloud infrastructures, helping in the overall interoperability of the system. Building upon principles of service oriented design, Intelligate takes full advantage of cloud services for processing potential big data streams produced by an ever increasing number of users and sensors while being expandable with new features without effecting existing ones

Internet of Things data management in the cloud for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices

Summarization: The use of wearable sensors and their connectivity to Internet offers significant benefits for storing sensing data that could be utilized intelligently for multiple purpose applications such as for monitoring purposes in healthcare domain. This work presents an Internet of Things (IoT) gateway service taking advantage of modern mobile devices and their capabilities to communicate with wearable Bluetooth low energy (BLE) sensors so data could be forwarded to the cloud on the fly and on real time. The service transforms a mobile platform (such as a smartphone) to a gateway allowing continuous and fast communication of data that is forwarded from the device to the cloud on demand or automatically for an automated decision making. Its features include (a) use of an internal processing mechanism for the BLE sensor signals and defines the way in which data is send to the cloud, (b) dynamic service as it has the ability to recognize new BLE sensors properties by easily adapting the data model according to a dynamic schema and (c) universal BLE devices capability that are registered automatically and are monitored on the fly while it keeps historical data that could be integrated into meaningful business intelligence. Building upon principles of service oriented design, the service takes full advantage of cloud services for processing potential big data streams produced by an ever increasing number of users and sensors. The contribution of this work is on the IoT data transmission rate that is averagely calculated to 128 milliseconds and in the experimental section we discuss that this is significantly low for real time data.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 3rd Internatioal Workshop on Adaptive Resource Management and Scheduling for Cloud Computin

Data management of sensor signals for high bandwidth data streaming to the cloud

Summarization: Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud computing highlight new requirements for data collection, storage and analysis of user data. In this work we focus on the data collection from Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices in order to identify and track data from things in real time, as well as to enhance data analysis by allowing processing in the Cloud. The paper proposes an IoT service architecture and a system implementation for a gateway service running on smart devices (tablets, smartphones) that supports generic access to BLE compliant sensors and allows on-the-fly sensor registration using an easy to use data information schema. The gateway is designed to support the processing (e.g. filtering) of sensor data before they are transferred to the cloud in example of FOG computing (that defines high bandwidth and low latency IoT distributed system). The experimental results demonstrate that the system supports real time communication and fast data collection, as the total time for data transmission (from smart sensors to the cloud) is less than 130 ms.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 37th IEEE Sarnoff Symposiu

The role and prospects of IoT and cloud computing in remote health monitoring

Summarization: Cloud computing emerges as the key platform for IoT data storage, processing and analytics due to its simplicity, scalability and affordability (i.e. no up-front investment, low operation costs). Remote patient monitoring in particular can benefit from for this technology in many ways: (a) the new solution is acceptable by many user categories and provides invaluable assistance to chronic patients and the elderly, (b) it is expected to increase users autonomy and confidence and enable self-managing of their condition with the help of caregivers remotely, (c) it reduces the need for face-to-face appointments with doctors and days in hospital. This work reviews key challenges for reliable and secure remote health monitoring based on experience and lessons learned from applying the above technology to the problem of real-time data collection using both wide-range and short-rage wireless protocols and health sensors.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 19th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Bioengineerin