Introduction to Internet of Things(IOT)

MODULE 3: IOT PROCESSING TOPOLOGIES AND TYPES

3.1. DATA FORMAT

The Internet is a vast space where huge quantities and varieties of data are generated regularly and
flow freely. As of January 2018, there are a reported 4:021 billion Internet users worldwide. The
massive volume of data generated by this huge number of users is further enhanced by the multiple
devices utilized by most users. In addition to these data-generating sources, non- human data
generation sources such as sensor nodes and automated monitoring systems further add to the data
load on the Internet. This huge data volume is composed of a variety of data such as e-mails, text

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documents (Word docs, PDFs, and others), social media posts, videos, audio files, and images, as
shown in Figure 3.1. However, these data can be broadly grouped into two types based on how they
can be accessed and stored: 1) Structured data and 2) unstructured data.

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Figure 3.1 The various data generating and storage sources connected to the Internet and the plethora
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of data types contained within it

 Structured data
These are typically text data that have a pre-defined structure. Structured data are associated with
relational database management systems (RDBMS). These are primarily created by using length-
limited data fields such as phone numbers, social security numbers, and other such information.
Even if the data is human or machine generated, these data are easily searchable by querying
algorithms as well as human generated queries. Common usage of this type of data is associated with

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flight or train reservation systems, banking systems, inventory controls, and other similar systems.
Established languages such as Structured Query Language (SQL) are used for accessing these data
in RDBMS. However, in the context of IoT, structured data holds a minor share of the total
generated data over the Internet.

 Unstructured data
In simple words, all the data on the Internet, which is not structured, is categorized as unstructured.
These data types have no pre-defined structure and can vary according to applications and data-
generating sources. Some of the common examples of human-generated unstructured data include
text, e-mails, videos, images, phone recordings, chats, and others. Some common examples of

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machine-generated unstructured data include sensor data from traffic, buildings, industries, satellite
imagery, surveillance videos, and others. As already evident from its examples, this data type does
not have fixed formats associated with it, which makes it very difficult for querying algorithms to
perform a look-up. Querying languages such as NoSQL are generally used for this data type.

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3.2. IMPORTANCE OF PROCESSING IN IOT

The vast amount and types of data flowing through the Internet necessitate the need for
intelligent and resourceful processing techniques. This necessity has become even more crucial with
the rapid advancements in IoT, which is laying enormous pressure on the existing network
infrastructure globally. Given these urgencies, it is important to decide when to process and what to
process? Before deciding upon the processing to pursue, we first divide the data to be processed into
three types based on the urgency of processing:
1) Very time critical,
2) time critical, and

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3) normal.
Data from sources such as flight control systems, healthcare, and other such sources, which need
immediate decision support, are deemed as very critical. These data have a very low threshold of
processing latency, typically in the range of a few milliseconds. Data from sources that can tolerate
normal processing latency are deemed as time critical data. These data, generally associated with
sources such as vehicles, traffic, machine systems, smart home systems, surveillance systems, and
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others, which can tolerate a latency of a few seconds fall in this category. Finally, the last category of
data, normal data, can tolerate a processing latency of a few minutes to a few hours and are typically
associated with less data-sensitive domains such as agriculture, environmental monitoring, and
others. Considering the requirements of data processing, the processing requirements of data from
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very time-critical sources are exceptionally high. Here, the need for processing the data in place or
almost nearer to the source is crucial in achieving the deployment success of such domains.
Similarly, considering the requirements of processing from category 2 data sources (time-critical),
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the processing requirements allow for the transmission of data to be processed to remote
locations/processors such as clouds or through collaborative processing. Finally, the last
category of data sources (normal) typically have no particular time requirements for processing
urgently and are pursued leisurely as such.
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3.3. PROCESSING TOPOLOGIES

The identification and intelligent selection of processing requirement of an IoT application are one
of the crucial steps in deciding the architecture of the deployment. A properly designed IoT
architecture would result in massive savings in network bandwidth and conserve significant
amounts of overall energy in the architecture while providing the proper and allowable processing
latencies for the solutions associated with the architecture. Regarding the importance of processing in
IoT as outlined in Section 3.2, we can divide the various processing solutions into two large

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topologies: 1) On-site and 2) Off-site. The off-site processing topology can be further divided into
the following: 1) Remote processing and 2) Collaborative processing.

 On-site processing
As evident from the name, the on-site processing topology signifies that the data is processed at the
source itself. This is crucial in applications that have a very low tolerance for latencies. These
latencies may result from the processing hardware or the network (during transmission of the data
for processing away from the processor). Applications such as those associated with healthcare and
flight control systems (real-time systems) have a breakneck data generation rate.

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These additionally show rapid temporal changes that can be missed (leading to catastrophic
damages) unless the processing infrastructure is fast and robust enough to handle such data. Figure
3.2 shows the on-site processing topology, where an event (here, fire) is detected utilizing a
temperature sensor connected to a sensor node. The sensor node processes the information from
the sensed event and generates an alert. The node additionally has the option of forwarding the data
to a remote infrastructure for further analysis and storage.
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Figure 3.2 Event detection using an on-site processing topology

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 Off-site processing
The off-site processing paradigm, as opposed to the on-site processing paradigms, allows for
latencies (due to processing or network latencies); it is significantly cheaper than on-site processing
topologies. This difference in cost is mainly due to the low demands and requirements of processing
at the source itself. Often, the sensor nodes are not required to process data on an urgent basis, so
having a dedicated and expensive on-site processing infrastructure is not sustainable for large-scale
deployments typical of IoT deployments. In the off-site processing topology, the sensor node is
responsible for the collection and framing of data that is eventually to be transmitted to another
location for processing. Unlike the on-site processing topology, the off-site topology has a few
dedicated high-processing enabled devices, which can be borrowed by multiple simpler sensor nodes

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to accomplish their tasks. At the same time, this arrangement keeps the costs of large-scale
deployments extremely manageable. In the off-site topology, the data from these sensor nodes (data
generating sources) is transmitted either to a remote location (which can either be a server or a cloud)
or to multiple processing nodes. Multiple nodes can come together to share their processing power
in order to collaboratively process the data (which is important in case a feasible communication
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pathway or connection to a remote location cannot be established by a single node).

 Remote processing
This is one of the most common processing topologies prevalent in present-day IoT solutions. It
encompasses sensing of data by various sensor nodes; the data is then forwarded to a remote server
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or a cloud-based infrastructure for further processing and analytics. The processing of data from
hundreds and thousands of sensor nodes can be simultaneously offloaded to a single, powerful
computing platform; this results in massive cost and energy savings by enabling the reuse and
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reallocation of the same processing resource while also enabling the deployment of smaller and
simpler processing nodes at the site of deployment. This setup also ensures massive scalability of
solutions, without significantly affecting the cost of the deployment. Figure 3.3 shows the outline of
one such paradigm, where the sensing of an event is performed locally, and the decision making is
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outsourced to a remote processor (here, cloud). However, this paradigm tends to use up a lot of
network bandwidth and relies heavily on the presence of network connectivity between the sensor
nodes and the remote processing infrastructure.

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Figure 3.3 Event detection using an off-site remote processing topology

 Collaborative processing

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This processing topology typically finds use in scenarios with limited or no network connectivity,
especially systems lacking a backbone network. Additionally, this topology can be quite
economical for large-scale deployments spread over vast areas, where providing networked access
to a remote infrastructure is not viable. In such scenarios, the simplest solution is to club together
the processing power of nearby processing nodes and collaboratively process the data in the vicinity
of the data source itself. This approach also reduces latencies due to the transfer of data over the
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network. Additionally, it conserves bandwidth of the network, especially ones connecting to the
Internet.

Figure 3.4 shows the collaborative processing topology for collaboratively processing data locally.
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This topology can be quite beneficial for applications such as agriculture, where an intense and
temporally high frequency of data processing is not required as agricultural data is generally logged
after significantly long intervals (in the range of hours). One important point to mention about this
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topology is the preference of mesh networks for easy implementation of this topology.
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Figure 3.4 Event detection using a collaborative processing topology

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3.4. IOT DEVICE DESIGN AND SELECTION CONSIDERATIONS

The main consideration of minutely defining an IoT solution is the selection of the processor for
developing the sensing solution (i.e., the sensor node). This selection is governed by many
parameters that affect the usability, design, and affordability of the designed IoT sensing and
processing solution. In this chapter, we mainly focus on the deciding factors for selecting a
processor for the design of a sensor node. The main factor governing the IoT device design and
selection for various applications is the processor. However, the other important considerations are as
follows.

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Size: This is one of the crucial factors for deciding the form factor and the energy consumption of a
sensor node. It has been observed that larger the form factor, larger is the energy consumption of the
hardware. Additionally, large form factors are not suitable for a significant bulk of IoT applications,
which rely on minimal form factor solutions (e.g., wearables).
Energy: The energy requirements of a processor is the most important deciding factor in designing
IoT-based sensing solutions. Higher the energy requirements, higher is the energy source (battery)
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replacement frequency. This principle automatically lowers the long-term sustainability of sensing
hardware, especially for IoT-based applications.
Cost: The cost of a processor, besides the cost of sensors, is the driving force in deciding the
density of deployment of sensor nodes for IoT-based solutions. Cheaper cost of the hardware
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enables a much higher density of hardware deployment by users of an IoT solution. For example,
cheaper gas and fire detection solutions would enable users to include much more sensing hardware
for a lesser cost.
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Memory: The memory requirements (both volatile and non-volatile memory) of IoT devices
determines the capabilities the device can be armed with. Features such as local data processing,
data storage, data filtering, data formatting, and a host of other features rely heavily on the memory
capabilities of devices. However, devices with higher memory tend to be costlier for obvious
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reasons.
Processing power: As covered in earlier sections, processing power is vital (comparable to
memory) in deciding what type of sensors can be accommodated with the IoT device/node, and what
processing features can integrate on-site with the IoT device. The processing power also decides the
type of applications the device can be associated with. Typically, applications that handle video and
image data require IoT devices with higher processing power as compared to applications requiring
simple sensing of the environment.
I/O rating: The input–output (I/O) rating of IoT device, primarily the processor, is the deciding factor

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in determining the circuit complexity, energy usage, and requirements for support of various
sensing solutions and sensor types. Newer processors have a meager I/O voltage rating of 3.3 V, as
compared to 5 V for the somewhat older processors. This translates to requiring additional voltage
and logic conversion circuitry to interface legacy technologies and sensors with the newer
processors. Despite low power consumption due to reduced I/O voltage levels, this additional
voltage and circuitry not only affects the complexity of the circuits but also affects the costs.
Add-ons: The support of various add-ons a processor or for that matter, an IoT device provides, such
as analog to digital conversion (ADC) units, in-built clock circuits, connections to USB and
ethernet, inbuilt wireless access capabilities, and others helps in defining the robustness and
usability of a processor or IoT device in various application scenarios. Additionally, the provision

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for these add-ons also decides how fast a solution can be developed, especially the hardware part of
the whole IoT application. As interfacing and integration of systems at the circuit level can be
daunting to the uninitiated, the prior presence of these options with the processor makes the
processor or device highly lucrative to the users/ developers.

3.5. PROCESSING OFFLOADING

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The processing offloading paradigm is important for the development of densely deployable,
energy-conserving, miniaturized, and cheap IoT-based solutions for sensing tasks. Building upon
the basics of the off-site processing topology covered in the previous sections in this chapter, we
delve a bit further into the various nuances of processing offloading in IoT. Figure 3.5 shows the
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typical outline of an IoT deployment with the various layers of processing that are encountered
spanning vastly different application domains from as near as sensing the environment to as far as
cloud-based infrastructure. Starting from the primary layer of sensing, we can have multiple sensing
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types tasked with detecting an environment (fire, surveillance, and others). The sensors enabling
these sensing types are integrated with a processor using wired or wireless connections (mostly,
wired). In the event that certain applications require immediate processing of the sensed data, an on-
site processing topology is followed, similar to the one in Figure 3.2. However, for the majority of
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IoT applications, the bulk of the processing is carried out remotely in order to keep the on-site
devices simple, small, and economical. Typically, for off-site processing, data from the sensing
layer can be forwarded to the fog or cloud or can be contained within the edge layer. The edge layer
makes use of devices within the local network to process data that which is similar to the
collaborative processing topology shown in Figure 3.4. The devices within the local network, till the
fog, generally communicate using short-range wireless connections. In case the data needs to be sent
further up the chain to the cloud, long-range wireless connection enabling access to a backbone
network is essential. Fog-based processing is still considered local because the fog nodes are

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typically localized within a geographic area and serve the IoT nodes within a much smaller
coverage area as compared to the cloud. Fog nodes, which are at the level of gateways, may or may
not be accessed by the IoT devices through the Internet.

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Figure 3.5 The various data generating and storage sources connected to the Internet and the
plethora of data types contained within it
Finally, the approach of forwarding data to a cloud or a remote server, as shown in the topology in
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Figure 3.3, requires the devices to be connected to the Internet through long-range wireless/wired
networks, which eventually connect to a backbone network. This approach is generally costly
concerning network bandwidth, latency, as well as the complexity of the devices and the network
infrastructure involved. This section on data offloading is divided into
three parts: 1) offload location (which outlines where all the processing can be offloaded in the IoT
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architecture), 2) offload decision making (how to choose where to offload the processing to and
by how much), and finally 3) offloading considerations (deciding when to offload).

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 Offload location
The choice of offload location decides the applicability, cost, and sustainability of the IoT
application and deployment. We distinguish the offload location into four types:

Edge: Offloading processing to the edge implies that the data processing is facilitated to a location
at or near the source of data generation itself. Offloading to the edge is done to achieve aggregation,
manipulation, bandwidth reduction, and other data operations directly on an IoT device.
Fog: Fog computing is a decentralized computing infrastructure that is utilized to conserve network

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bandwidth, reduce latencies, restrict the amount of data unnecessarily flowing through the Internet,
and enable rapid mobility support for IoT devices. The data, computing, storage and applications
are shifted to a place between the data source and the cloud resulting in significantly reduced
latencies and network bandwidth usage.
Remote Server: A simple remote server with good processing power may be used with IoT based
applications to offload the processing from resource constrained IoT devices. Rapid scalability may
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be an issue with remote servers, and they may be costlier and hard to maintain in comparison to
solutions such as the cloud.
Cloud: Cloud computing is a configurable computer system, which can get access to configurable
resources, platforms, and high-level services through a shared pool hosted remotely. A cloud is
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provisioned for processing offloading so that processing resources can be rapidly provisioned with
minimal effort over the Internet, which can be accessed globally. Cloud enables massive scalability
of solutions as they can enable resource enhancement allocated to a user or solution in an on-
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demand manner, without the user having to go through the pains of acquiring and configuring new
and costly hardware.
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 Offload decision making

The choice of where to offload and how much to offload is one of the major deciding factors in the
deployment of an offsite-processing topology-based IoT deployment architecture. The decision
making is generally addressed considering data generation rate, network bandwidth, the criticality
of applications, processing resource available at the offload site, and other factors. Some of these
approaches are as follows.

Naive Approach: This approach is typically a hard approach, without too much decision making. It
can be considered as a rule-based approach in which the data from IoT devices are offloaded to the
nearest location based on the achievement of certain offload criteria. Although easy to implement,

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this approach is never recommended, especially for dense deployments, or deployments where the
data generation rate is high or the data being offloaded in complex to handle (multimedia or hybrid
data types). Generally, statistical measures are consulted for generating the rules for offload
decision making.
Bargaining based approach: This approach, although a bit processing-intensive during the decision
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making stages, enables the alleviation of network traffic congestion, enhances service QoS (quality
of service) parameters such as bandwidth, latencies, and others. At times, while trying to maximize
multiple parameters for the whole IoT implementation, in order to provide the most optimal solution
or QoS, not all parameters can be treated with equal importance. Bargaining based solutions try to
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maximize the QoS by trying to reach a point where the qualities of certain parameters are reduced,
while the others are enhanced. This measure is
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undertaken so that the achieved QoS is collaboratively better for the full implementation rather than
a select few devices enjoying very high QoS. Game theory is a common example of the bargaining
based approach. This approach does not need to depend on historical data for decision making
purposes.
Learning based approach: Unlike the bargaining based approaches, the learning based approaches
generally rely on past behavior and trends of data flow through the IoT architecture. The optimization
of QoS parameters is pursued by learning from historical trends and trying to optimize previous
solutions further and enhance the collective behavior of the IoT implementation. The memory

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requirements and processing requirements are high during the decision making stages. The most
common example of a learning based approach is machine learning.

 Offloading considerations
There are a few offloading parameters which need to be considered while deciding upon the
offloading type to choose. These considerations typically arise from the nature of the IoT
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application and the hardware being used to interact with the application. Some of these parameters
are as follows.
Bandwidth: The maximum amount of data that can be simultaneously transmitted over the network
between two points is the bandwidth of that network. The bandwidth of a wired or wireless network
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is also considered to be its data-carrying capacity and often used to describe the data rate of that
network.
Latency: It is the time delay incurred between the start and completion of an operation. In the
present context, latency can be due to the network (network latency) or the processor (processing
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latency). In either case, latency arises due to the physical limitations of the infrastructure, which is
associated with an operation. The operation can be data transfer over a network or processing of a
data at a processor.
Criticality: It defines the importance of a task being pursued by an IoT application. The more
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critical a task is, the lesser latency is expected from the IoT solution. For example, detection of fires
using an IoT solution has higher criticality than detection of agricultural field parameters. The
former requires a response time in the tune of milliseconds, whereas the latter can be addressed
within hours or even days.
Resources: It signifies the actual capabilities of an offload location. These capabilities may be the
processing power, the suite of analytical algorithms, and others. For example, it is futile and
wasteful to allocate processing resources reserved for real-time multimedia processing (which are
highly energy-intensive and can process and analyze huge volumes of data in a short duration) to

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scalar data (which can be addressed using nominal resources without wasting much energy).
Data volume: The amount of data generated by a source or sources that can be simultaneously
handled by the offload location is referred to as its data volume handling capacity. Typically, for
large and dense IoT deployments, the offload location should be robust enough to address the
processing issues related to massive data volumes.

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