Module - 5 _ 2

Network technology and protocols

• Examining the access network technology and protocols

• Examining the middleware transport protocols

• Middleware software patterns

• IIoT WAN technologies and protocols

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 Module - Frame work

Network Communication

Architecture

and Protocols

1
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) / IP (Internet Protocol)

▪ TCP/ IP is a suite of protocols that enables IP data to traverse unreliable networks such as traditional dial-up and long
distance serial links with a measure of reliability.

▪ TCP/IP provides IP with the functionality to detect lost packets—by sequencing each packet—as well as to enable the
recipient to reorder packet streams according to their sequence numbers.

▪ The problem is that TCP is connection orientated, for example,

two communicating hosts require establishing a connection

known as a session in order to transmit packets.

▪ The session between hosts is established through a

three-way handshake, after which both hosts can

communicate freely with each other

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Publish/Subscribe protocols
The most commonly deployed publish/subscribe protocols to enhance the efficiency of IIoT systems are
• MQTT
• XMPP
• AMQP
• DDS
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)

MQTT is a publish/subscribe protocol that’s focused on device data collection.

MQTT’s main purpose is telemetry, or remote monitoring, therefore it’s designed to interconnect and retrieve data from
thousands of edge devices and transport the aggregated traffic back to the operational and management domain.

Therefore, in the general classification, MQTT is considered to be a device-to-server protocol.

“Message Queue Telemetry Transport, is an open message protocol designed for M2M communications that facilitated
the transfer of telemetry-style data in the form of messages from pervasive devices, along high latency or constrained
networks, to a server or small message broker.”

Therefore, MQTT is based on a hub-to-spoke topology, as it is designed to collect data from edge transducers and send
the data collected back to a collection server in the operations and management domain.

Because of this design, MQTT does not facilitate device-to-device connections and works in a point-to-point
relationship between devices and the collection server.

MQTT’s job specification is simply to collect data from devices and transport the data reliably back to the collection
server.
XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol )
XMPP is an open technology for real-time communication developed to deliver a wide range of applications.
XMPP was developed to focus on the advent of technologies such as instant messaging, presence, and video conferencing,
which were dominated by Skype and WhatsApp.
XMPP was designed to use protocols that make human style communication easier.
For example, it uses XML as its native type and an addressing scheme that is intuitive to humans. The addressing format is
[email protected] , which facilitates people-to-people communications, as it is an easily recognizable format common to e-
mail and IM programs.
In the context of the IIoT, XMPP may have some useful features such as its user-friendly addressing of devices. It will be
easy for a human controller to identify and address devices using a smartphone and a simple URL.
XMPP was initially designed for human usage therefore; it was not designed to be fast. Indeed most deployments of XMPP
use polling, or even only-on-demand to check for presence.
Therefore, XMPP’s performance is based on human perception of real time, which is in seconds rather than micro-seconds.
XMPP is best suited for industrial processes that have human-managed interfaces that favor security, addressability, and
scalability over real-time performance.
AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing protocol)

AMQP is not strictly a publish/subscribe protocol but rather as its name suggests a queuing protocol.

AMQP comes not from IoT but has its roots in the financial and banking industry.

As a result, AMQP can be considered a battle hardened queuing protocol that delivers high levels of
reliability even when managing queues of thousands of messages, such as banking transactions.

Due to its roots in the banking industry, AMQP is designed to be highly reliable and capable of tracking
every message or transaction that it receives.

As a result, AMQP operates over TCP/IP but also requires strict acknowledgment of message receipts from
the recipient.

However, despite not being a true publish/subscribe protocol, AMQP is highly complementary to other
publish/subscribe protocols, as it delivers highly reliable message queuing and tracking, which is a
requirement in some IIoT use-cases.

AMQP is also deployed at the server level in the operations and management domain to help with analytics
and data management.
DDS (Data Distribution Service)

The (DDS) targets devices that directly use device data.

DDS distributes data to other devices on a bus so it is considered a device-to-device protocol.

The concepts behind how DDS handles the publish/subscribe model is that devices require data in real time as devices are
fast. In this context, “real time” is often measured in microseconds.

DDS offers detailed quality-of-service (QoS) control, multicast, configurable reliability, and pervasive redundancy.

DDS also provides ways to filter and publish to specific subscribers and they can be thousands of simultaneous destinations,
without the time delay of the broker model.

DDS can also support lightweight versions of DDS that run in constrained environments such as on low-power devices.

DDS is capable of meeting the demands of high-performance IIoT systems because DDS implements a direct device-to-
device “bus” communication with a relational data model.

This relational data is called a “ data bus ” and it is similar to the way a database controls access to stored data.

DDS is designed for high-performance systems so it’s a perfect match for IIoT applications such as manufacturing systems,
wind farms, hospital integration, medical imaging, asset-tracking systems, and automotive test and safety.
 WAN Technologies
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) —This is a very popular fixed-line technology offered by Telco service
providers because it can utilize an existing telephone line.

By using the local loop copper to connect a local DSM modem/router to a DSLAM in the Telco’s premises,
DSL services can be provisioned cheaply and efficiently.

The alternative is to run over fiber, which was once rare and expensive but is now far more common as
business demand for higher and higher data speeds appears insatiable.

DSL is suitable for IIoT back-end and cloud interconnection as it is fast and reliable.

Additionally, multiple xDSL circuits can be bundled using techniques such as software-defined WAN (SD-
WAN) to provide greater reliability and throughput by aggregating available bandwidth.

One drawback to xDSL is that the advertised bandwidth is shared among subscribers and service providers
oversell link capacity, due to the nature of spiky TCP/IP and Internet browsing habits.

Therefore, contention ratios—the number of other customers you are sharing the bandwidth with—can be as
high as 50:1 for residential use and 10:1 for business use.
 WAN Technologies

SDH / SONET (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy / Synchronous Optical Networking) —This optic ring
technology is typically deployed as the service provider’s transport core as it
provides high speed, high capacity, and highly reliable and fault-tolerant transport for data over vast
geographical regions.

However, for customers that require high-speed data links over a large geographical region, typically
enterprises or large company's fiber optic rings are high performance, highly reliable, and high cost.

Sonnet and SDH are transport protocols that encapsulate payload data within fixed synchronous frames.

By aggregating frames, SDH/Sonnet can handle higher payloads, and therefore higher throughput. Ethernet
can be carried over SDH/Sonnet due to its protocol neutrality and high-speed variants. 10G, 40G, and 100G
map directly to OUT-2, OUT-3, and OUT-4, respectively.
 WAN Technologies
MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) —IP/MPLS is the modern and most common backbone
technology of service providers today.

MPLS has replaced the legacy leased-lines, frame-relays, and ATMs in most countries but not all.

MPLS uses a fast switching technology that uses labels to encapsulate other protocols.

MPLS can encapsulate and switch anything, which makes it hugely flexible in Telco service provider
networks.

MPLS can switch Ethernet across vast areas using layer-2 VPNs or route traffic using layer-3 VPNs.

Ethernet services are sold as virtual leased private lines or LANS.

MPLS is fast, extremely reliable, secure, and easy to manage from a user perspective.

However, it can be slow to provision, unavailable in some regions, and expensive.

3G/4G and LTE have broadband capabilities with high data throughput availability.

It is 3G/4G and LTEs wide coverage footprint that makes it so enticing for IIoT urban and rural
applications.

However, it has its drawbacks when used for device connectivity as it requires high power, so has poor
battery life.

Those failings can be mitigated by connecting many devices to a local 3G router, for example in a hub-
spoke topology, which can make better use of the service available.

However, because mobile networks are designed for voice and broadband data the price of a data plan and
SIM for a remote router can be prohibitive.

Mobile operators are beginning to offer IoT service plans so that might change, but even if the price does
fall, the inherent design of the networks will not, and that will still make them technically inefficient for
devices that communicate only tiny amounts, intermittently.
 WAN Technologies
DWDM (Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing) —The most advanced core transport optical network and typically
only affordable to service providers and huge enterprises.

DWDM carries data arriving from different sources over the same optical carrier simultaneously.

It manages this by multiplexing the data sources using an optical add/drop multiplexor and placing each on a different optical
wavelength for transport across the optical fiber.

By utilizing optical filters, the wavelengths travelling at different frequencies can be separated at the destination and the data
extracted.

DWDM greatly enhances the capabilities of optic fiber because, by using different wavelengths to transport different data
sources independently but simultaneously across the same strand of optical fiber, they create in effect virtual fibers.

DWDM can currently support 80 different wavelength channels, with each channel carries data at bit rates of 2.5Gbps.

DWDM is used typically in service provider backbones, mobile core networks, metro-Ethernet networks, and even for
connecting enterprise data centers using layer-2 switching over DWDM.

DWDM is the premier high capacity, high-performance transport mechanism today and it is becoming popular for short and
medium point-to-point links as well as for long distance core rings.