Internet of Things
Internet of Things
Internet of Things
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Abstract – The Internet of things can be defined as to make the objects we could expect on the Internet? Estimatives go
“things” belong to the Internet. However, many wonder if the from billions to trillions [2][21][22]. These estimates will
current Internet can support such a challenge. For this and other certainly make you wonder if the current Internet can
reasons, hundreds of worldwide initiatives to redesign the Internet support such tremendous increase in the number of
are underway. This article discusses the perspectives, challenges
connected devices and networks. These and other
and opportunities behind a future Internet that fully supports the
“things”, as well as how the “things” can help in the design of a challenges have motivated the networking community to
more synergistic future Internet. question whether it is time to redesign the Internet
Keywords–Internet of things, smart things, future Internet, considering the current state-of-the-art on information and
software-defined networking, service-centrism, information- communication technologies (ICT). Thus, worldwide,
centrism, ID/Loc splitting, security, privacy, trust. hundreds of initiatives are proposing to reengineer the
Internet under the banner of the so-called future Internet
I. INTRODUCTION (FI) research [5][21].
The Internet of things (IoT) refers to uniquely addressable
objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like
structure [18][19][20]. We can say that it is an extension of
Internet with uniquely addressable objects becoming a part of
existing Internet. The objects forming the IoT will have
distinct characteristics about them. They may hold self-
identifying information; they may even transmit the processed
information or anything that may be considered important with
respect to the object with which they are associated.
There is a lot of pervasive presence in the human
environment of things or objects, such as radio-frequency
identification (RFID) tags, sensors, actuators, mobile phones,
smart embedded devices, etc. – which, through unique
addressing schemes, are able to effectively communicate and
interact with each other and work together to reach a common
goal of making the system easier to operate and utilize. The
objects that will be connected will be adaptive, intelligent, and
responsive.
The IoT will be altogether a new environment in which the
current Internet will be smartly supported by all together new
range of smart embedded devices. The IoT will be
characterized by an environment rich in RFID, ipv6, near field Figure 1: Future Internet: A “smart things” evolutionary
communication (NFC), barcodes, quick response (QR) codes, perspective.
smartphone apps, GPS, and other smart devices.
The networked objects will sense the environment with help
of the sensors and will communicate among themselves Considering an evolutionary point of view, the future
directly or with the help of the Internet. The amount of Internet will comprise of existing Internet and smart
knowledge comprised with redundant information will embedded objects which will be the basis of the Internet of
certainly be analyzed and assessed by the analytic software things. The IoT will be a distinct part of the FI. It will be
and intelligent decisions will be the final outcome. seamlessly integrated in to the existing Internet
In this scenario, what could be the number of networked infrastructure which will help the service oriented
architecture of the Internet to utilize the services available mobility, routing, etc. The Internet lacks on the support for
through the system. However, as computing and unique identification and transparency. IP addresses are
communication resources become more and more ubiquitous, used no only to locate devices on the network, but also to
the smart things will increasingly become integral part of the identify them [2][4]. Since the devices’ addresses behind a
FI, augmenting the overlapping area of the IoT and Internet network address translation (NAT) are opaque [5], the IDs
spheres in Figure 1. are not valid outside an autonomous system. This severely
In an evolutionary perspective, the FI will face the limits the transparency on the network. The scalability of
challenge of the integration of smart embedded devices in to the current domain naming system (DNS) is also affected by
the ever expanding Internet. Protocols using 6lowpan are a huge increase in the number of device networks. Several
improving. Since there are bandwidth limitations, the users
other aspects on the current Internet are affected by this
which are using ipv6 will certainly face connectivity and
evolution scenario [2][3].
timing issues. To resolve this more efficient compressing
New network architectures need to overcome the current
algorithm are being developed to be used in the seamless
integration in to the system. Internet limitations by rethinking such limiting aspects.
In a revolutionary perspective, most of the challenges are at They need to take advantage of the expected ubiquity of
the design level. IoT and FI relationships need to be clearly computing and communication resources to improve the
determined. More synergistic designs are required to take connectivity and robustness of wireless sensor and actuator
advantage of efforts, reducing unnecessary overlapping and networks (WSANs). Devices need to be persistently
producing more efficient and flexible architectures. This paper identified to allow perennial traceability to existent
provides a first glance discussion on the relationships between sensoring and actuating resources [3]. The challenge is to
the IoT and FI considering a full convergence point of view. identify perennially and uniquely the devices that are
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows. Section collecting real world information or actuating over the real
II covers the IoT requirements and perspectives regarding world. Also, device locators need to be decoupled from
capacity, ubiquity, and scalability issues. Section III focuses identifiers to allow mobility without loss of identity [4].
on the role of IoT considering a more deep integration This and other proposals to improve IoT scalability will be
between the real and virtual worlds. Section IV concerns on discussed on the following sections.
how to expose IoT resources to software and how to
orchestrate IoT related services and applications. Section V III. REAL-VIRTUAL WORLDS INTEGRATION
addresses the relationship between IoT and software-defined
networking. Management and human intervention aspects are The perspective behind the IoT is that the real world will
discussed on section VI. Section VII covers the relationships be increasingly integrated with the virtual one [3]. Right
between IoT and the information-centric paradigm for FI now, the world is in process of making new smart
design. Section VIII focuses on naming, identification, embedded devices. Embedded devices are still emerging.
mobility, and multihoming support. Section IX concerns to the This will create a flood of real world information,
security, privacy, and trust aspects. Finally, the Section X does considerably enriching our applications, making them more
some final remarks. aware of what happens in the real world, in real time,
everywhere. Smart applications are being thought of as the
II. CAPACITY, UBIQUITY, AND SCALABILITY process of making the system more popular as per the
The accelerated evolution of computing and system point of views. One can expect the popularization of
communications capacities [1], i.e. memory, processing, new applications that take advantage of this situational
storage, transmission rate, etc., allows the implementation of information, like augment reality, ambient intelligence,
small devices capable of sensing the real world and social appliances, networked cars, and many others. Also,
transmitting the obtained data to services and applications on there are the applications to control or act over the real
the Internet. As the cost of technologies fall, more and more world. Decisions made on the virtual side can be reflected
capacity becomes available, making the use of networked on the real environment. This will help us to save energy, to
sensoring and actuating devices more and more viable. One better use our environmental resources.
can expect that the number of devices will increase faster and To transform this huge amount of raw data on knowledge
faster in the next decades [2]. As a result, sensing and is one of the biggest challenges behind the IoT. There is an
actuating capabilities can become ubiquitous, allowing entire cycle of raw data processing up to the generation of a
unprecedented scenarios of interaction between the real and knowledge database. Possible data processing includes
the virtual worlds [3]. statistics generation, data aggregation, filtering, correlation,
Although it is expected that this scenario will bring huge contextualization, and exposition. Depending on the service
benefits for our information society, the challenges behind it or application, time sensitivity is also an issue.
are equally big [3]. A significant increase in the number of Generally speaking, the information and knowledge
internet-enabled devices (IEDs) can create relevant challenges obtained from the sensorial network will be further used to
to the scalability of the current TCP/IP stack [2][3], including feed other processes, like decision making or actuating.
the support for naming, addressing, identification, location, Therefore, complex hierarchical feedback control loops can
be created based on the obtained sensorial data. As in any V. SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING
control system, some challenges are stability, performance, Software-defined networking (SDN) means to design
and sensitivity. New network architectures must create the networks from a software engineering perspective [10]. It
necessary support to such hierarchical control systems, means to look for the right abstractions when designing new
providing the appropriate support for the data/information network architectures. OpenFlow is a first realization of this
exchange between the real and virtual worlds. idea [11]. Network control is performed based on a
centralized view of the network. However, it is important to
IV. RESOURCES EXPOSITION AND SERVICE CENTRISM note that the SDN paradigm is more broad than the
Not only the collected IoT data need to be exposed to the OpenFlow implementation. The research for the right
software environment, but also the existent IoT resources, i.e. abstractions for the SDN is still in the beginning.
sensors, actuators, or even entire networks. In other words, In this scenario, the convergence between the IoT and the
IoT resources need be exposed to software orchestration SDN is an emerging research area. A priori, the relationship
frameworks, allowing the dynamic and integrated composition between the two technologies appear to be bilateral. The
of devices, networks, services, and applications [6]. Entire SDN paradigm could be applied to the IoT design. This is
services’ life-cycles can be orchestrated involving such already happening for wireless networks and WSANs,
exposed resources. First, services and applications can search where OpenFlow is used to program/configure network
for available IoT devices. Second, dynamic usage contracts nodes [23]. Software-defined and software-controlled
can be negotiated and established. The quality of the sensoring WSANs were just emerged as a research topic. An
and actuating functionalities can be monitored and evaluated. interesting issue is how the well-known limitations of
Dynamic contracts with sensors and actuators that do not WSANs will shape the application of the SDN paradigm on
perform as expected can be revoked. Devices can compete this networks.
each other to provide better services to virtual entities. The In the opposite direction, the IoT can be used to collect
reputation of networked objects can be estimated according to real-world information that is relevant for networking
previous established contracts. control, as well as to reflect software decisions on network
Nonetheless, IoT capabilities can be seen as a service that is hardware. An open subject is how to design networking
exposed to other software via orchestration frameworks and control and management systems that take advantage of the
contracted on demand. This view approximates the IoT to the IoT. An additional challenge is to ensure the correctness
so-called Internet of services (IoS) [7][8], which is a branch of and temporal coherence of the controls sent by software to
the FI research. In this context, a first challenge is how to the actuators.
design a service oriented IoT? A second one is how to enable
the joint orchestration of non-IoT and IoT substrate resources VI. MANAGEMENT AND AUTONOMICITY
and services. The convergence, the search for synergies, and The expectation behind the IoT is that it will manage
the elimination of redundant aspects in these two proposals itself or at least reduce considerably the degree of the
strengthens both and more efficiently addresses the challenges human intervention required [3]. We can not expect that the
behind the design of a new Internet. IoT will be managed in the same way as the telecom
The IoT resources need to be very precisely exposed. Thus, operator’s networks today. First, because the quantity of
devices’ descriptors can be elaborated and divulgated to networked devices will be orders of magnitude greater. The
possible partners. The publish/subscribe paradigm fits very traditional management model would have a very high cost
well on this task [9]. However, one can not expect that small if applied for the IoT scenario. Second, hundreds or even
sensors and actuators are able to neither expose their thousands of devices will be under the ownership of non-
capabilities, nor establish dynamic contracts. It is well known technical people, in their houses, cars, clothes, etc. Third,
that energy and other factors limit the IEDs’ functionalities. IoT management requirements have several important
Therefore, proxies can be used to represent simple networked differences when compared to traditional networks [12].
objects that do not support such functionalities. Therefore, to manage such devices is a different problem
Another very important challenge for FI architectures is the when compared with traditional Internet or telephony
consistent management of exposed resources’ life-cycle. In management. Fortunately, the restrictions imposed on the
this context, some questions are: How to manage the life-cycle IoT devices (e.g. energy, computing power, faults, limited
of exposed resources? How to share IoT resources among reach, etc.) are well understood right now and have
several orchestration frameworks? How to describe the device influenced the creation of evolving management approaches
capabilities? How to format the contracts? How to provide the less dependent on human interference [14].
adequate search mechanisms? Which circumstances can cause The IoT viability depends on the scalability, generality,
a contract revocation? These are open problems that need to autonomicity, and comprehensiveness of its management.
be investigated. Moreover, when we look for more deep synergies, the FI
management may itself depend on the IoT, since sensoring
and actuating are desirable functionalities for any ICT
equipment management. Thus, while the IoT works like a databases, etc. On the contrary, the information-centric
sensorial nervous system for the FI, providing the required design considers the information as the main ingredient of
data to establish adequate real-world awareness, it also the FI [15]. The argument is the same, i.e. everything can be
demands the management of its “army” of devices. Therefore, considered as information over a certain level of
there is a two-way relationship between the substrate resources abstraction. This approach is also know as information
management and the sensoring and actuating capabilities of centric networking (ICN). Let’s call this branch of the FI
the IoT. An open challenge is how to combine both design as Internet of information (IoI). As previously
requirements in an elegant design, without unnecessary discussed, the IoT and IoS also present a two-way
overlappings. relationship, where the IoT can be seen as a service on the
Among the proposals to reduce human interference on ICT, IoS approach and the IoS depends on the contextualized
there is the so-called autonomic technology, or self-* [13]. information provided by the IoT, as well as on its actuating
The asterisk is the name of the function that is performed capability. Thus, what is the relationship between the IoT
autonomically, e.g. self-organization, self-configuration, self- and the IoI?
optimizing, self-healing, etc. The goal would be to create a Node-centrism is perhaps the most common approach for
self-management solution or an autonomic “pilot” for the IoT. designing WSANs. A possible explanation is that for many
The implementation of the self-* properties is typically years the main design challenges were related to the energy
based on an autonomic element that performs an autonomic and other environmental pre-requirements. The idea of
cycle. According to Kephart and Chess [13], this cycle putting sensoring and actuating nodes on the Internet made
consists on the following phases: monitoring, analyzing, other design aspects emerge, such as the ones addressed on
planning, execution, and knowledge. The monitoring phase this paper. Additionally, there are the information-centric
relies on sensors that collect the relevant data at a managed aspects, e.g. information representation, naming,
entity, while the execution phase depends on effectors that identification, addressing, search, locating, traceability,
execute the planned actions. The analyzing phase aims at distribution, privacy, security, integrity, and management.
contextualizing the monitored data to create the required Thus this paper defends that the IoT can take great
awareness regarding the managed entity. At the planning advantage of the precepts behind the IoI. Self-certifying
phase, actuating plans are generated and evaluated based on names (SCNs) can be used to name data and/or information
the analyzed data and other inputs, like politics, rules, goals, in a persistent and verifiable way1. The integrity of sensing
etc. The execution phase aims at executing the elaborated and actuating data can be checked based on such names.
plans. And, in a knowledge phase, fitness and learning takes Also, IoT information can be described and represented by
place based on the history of the actions done. In this context, information objects, which contain digital signatures,
the IoT role on future networks: checksums, metadata, access rights, formats, ontology, etc.
Merges with the necessary functionalities to implement a The persistent identification of data chunks or coded
self-management approach. Observe that many of the IoT information is another requirement advocated by the IoI.
roles overlap with the functionalities advocated by the Information identifiers need to be decoupled from addresses
autonomic cycle. Thus, the autonomic technology appears and locators. Therefore, IoT information could be moved or
to be a natural candidate for the IoT management [14]. copied without loosing its identity. Search and discovery of
Provides the contextualized real-world information IoT information can be performed based on persistent
necessary to feed the autonomic cycle of other FI names and/or identifiers. Also, information coherence,
architectural components. For example, assume a virtual provenance, and traceability become persistent. Finally,
network admission control service that decides whether a data and information are secured per se [16] – they do not
new virtual network can be established or not over some depend anymore only on secured connections.
real-world substrate. The autonomic cycle of this service In the opposite direction, the IoT can enrich the IoI with
could rely in a set of contracted sensors that measure the the information measured in the real world, as well as allow
available capacity on the physical infrastructure. If a new actuating over it. The benefits for the IoI are similar to those
virtual network is accepted, the admission installation can resulting from the convergence of the IoS and the IoT.
be done by effectors at the real-world equipment, e.g. Thus, the application of the information-centric paradigm
optical switch control or electromechanical antenna on the context of the IoT is an unexplored research area.
positioning. Thus, the IoT appears to be a natural Some open challenges are: How to name data chunks and
candidate to implement some of the phases of the information sensed on the IoT? How to create identifier for
autonomic cycle for FI components. them? How to resolve identifiers to locators? How to create
the metadata for the measured data? How to distribute the
VII. INFORMATION-CENTRISM data to one or more interested destinations? How to support
The IoS approach considers that behind a certain level of ID-based mobility? How to enable search and discovery of
abstraction, everything in a new Internet can be considered a
1
service, e.g. infrastructure, frameworks, operating systems, SCNs contain the result of a cryptographic hash function over the
binary pattern of the data.
sensorial information? How to deal with the privacy of the IoT IoT. An approach to deal with this situation (and many
information? Or more generally speaking, how to apply the others on the FI) could be the establishment of a trust
state-of-the-art on information-centric design to the IoT network of hospitals. Instead of individually authorizing
scope? every possible hospital in a country, the patient authorizes
the trust network. Thus, in case of emergency access can be
VIII. NAMING, IDENTIFICATION, MOBILITY, AND MULTIHOMING granted to other hospital in the trust network.
People like to assign legible names to devices, networks, Trust networks are in essence a collaboration contract
services, and even for information. In addition to the legible between trustable peers. They can be established among
names, SCNs can be calculated based on the binary patterns of nodes in a WSAN in order to authenticate forwarding,
digital entities and information. On the other hand, identifiers routing, or even aggregation of data [17]. They can also
are symbols that uniquely identify an entity or a content in a help on the selection of a node cluster’s leader. Observe
certain scope. SCNs can be identifiers if they are unique in how close this idea is to the dynamic contract establishment
some scope. The dynamic resolution of an identifier in other idea on the IoS. Therefore, the management of trust
identifiers allows the architecture to model the relationships networks requires a complex contract life-cycle
among devices and their sensorial data. As a data moves it management. Also, entities reputation need to be estimated
changes its address and location, but its identifier remains the in order to decline or not their participation in some
same within the same scope. The same occurs to a node that network. Moreover, the establishment of comprehensive
moves in some network. Therefore, the separation of trust networks that spread over the IoT and other FI
identifiers and locators in the IoT is very desirable. More components is a new research frontier.
research needs to be done on the dynamic resolution problem.
Also, standardization bodies need to verify the suitability of X. FINAL REMARKS
the contemporary approaches for device identification on the The Internet of things is a fundamental ingredient of the
FI. The research on mechanisms to generate persistent and future Internet, since it provides the sensorial and actuating
unique identifiers to other entities in the IoT is also an issue, capabilities required to greatly enhance the interaction
including networks, services, virtual entities, etc. Other between the real and virtual worlds. Not only it collects the
challenges are: How to ensure that there is no collision? Or at real world data that feeds the entire FI, but also it offers the
least, how to minimize collisions probability? How to check actuating devices that can make virtual world decisions real.
the veracity and uniqueness of a given identifier? How to map The continued reduction in the cost of computing and
an identifier to a locator in a large population of IoT devices? communication capabilities indicates that the IoT will
Is it possible to use the IDs as addresses to forward or route become ubiquitous, allowing the FI to achieve increasing
information? Or more generally, how to design an ID-based levels of environmental awareness, as well as making our
IoT? environment more intelligent and sustainable. Such
Finally, there is the multihoming support for IoT resources. capabilities feed significant bilateral relationships with other
The current Internet provides a limited support for FI ingredients, such as: information- and service-centric
multihoming. New architectures need to support simultaneous approaches, software-defined networking, self-management,
connectivity and multipath routing. The ubiquitous naming, identification, mobility, multihoming, security,
connectivity needs to be explored in design, as well as new privacy, and trust. Therefore, this paper argues that the FI
routing approaches. Service redundancy is also a pre- research should better exploit the synergies between these
requirement. proposals and the IoT, eliminating unnecessary
overlappings and cohesively integrating them towards the
IX. SECURITY, PRIVACY, AND TRUST design of a cohesive new Internet.
The data gathered from IoT sensors or tags can carry
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