BETCK205H Introduction to IoT

Module 3
IoT Processing Topologies &Types

▪ Learning Outcomes
After reading this Module, the student will be able to:
▪ List common data types in IoT applications
▪ Understand the importance of processing
▪ Explain the various processing topologies in IoT
▪ Understand the importance of processing offloading achieving
scalability and cost-effectiveness of IoT solutions.

▪ Determine the importance of choosing the right processing topologies and

associated considerations while designing IoT applications
▪ Determine the requirements that are associated with IoT-based processing of
sensed and communicated data.

Chapter 6: IoT Processing Topologies and Types (Textbook: Page 115-125)

▪ Data Format: Structured data, Unstructured data.
▪ Importance of Processing in IoT
▪ Processing Topologies: On-site processing, Off-site processing.
▪ IoT Device Design and Selection Considerations
▪ Processing Offloading:
• Offload location

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Chapter 6: IoT Processing Topologies and Types

6.1 Data Format: In an IoT system, a massive volume of data is generated by a huge
number of diversified users. These data can be broadly grouped into TWO types based
on how they can be accessed and stored: *
1. Structured data
2. Unstructured data
1. Structured data: Structured data is highly specific, typically text data, and is stored in
a predefined format. Typical examples are product databases, contact lists, etc. These
are primarily created by using length-limited data fields such as phone numbers,
social security numbers, and other such information. Common usage of

required to process vast amounts and types of data flowing through the Internet. it is
also important to decide when to process and what to process. We first divide the data
to be processed into THREE types based on the urgency of processing:
1. Very time-critical data
2. Time critical data
3. Normal data
1. Very time-critical data: These data have a very low processing latency, typically in
the range of a few milliseconds. Data from sources such as flight control systems,
healthcare, etc need immediate decision support. Processing requirements are
exceptionally high. Processing the data in place or nearer to the source is crucial.

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 BETCK205H Introduction to IoT

2. Time-critical data: 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, smart home systems, surveillance systems, and others, can
tolerate a latency of a few seconds. These data are to be processed in remote locations
processors such as clouds.
3. Normal data: These 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. Typically have no particular time
requirements for processing urgently.

6.3 Processing Topologies:*** The various processing solutions are divided into two
large topologies:
1. On-site processing topologies
2. Off-site processing topologies: It further divides into
i. Remote processing topologies
ii. Collaborative processing topologies

1. On-site processing topologies: In this topology, the data is processed at the source
itself. It is used in applications that have a very low tolerance for latencies. These
latencies may result from the processing hardware or the network. Applications such
as healthcare and flight control systems (real-time systems). The processing
infrastructure is fast and robust enough to handle such data (See figure 6.2)

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Figure 6.2 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.
2. Off-site processing: Here processing is not done at the source point. It allows for
latencies and is significantly cheaper than on-site processing topologies. In this topology,
the sensor node is responsible for the collection and framing of data to be transmitted
to another location for processing. Simpler sensor node borrows processing from
high processing enabled device to accomplish their task. Multiple nodes can come
together to share their processing power to collaboratively process thedata. It is divided
into TWO types
i. Remote processing: It is the most common processing topology used in present-day
IoT solutions. It encompasses sensing data by various sensor nodes; the data is then
forwarded to a remote server or a cloud-based infrastructure for further processing
and analytics. Figure 6.3 shows the outline of one such paradigm, where the sensing
of an event is performed locally, and the decision-making is outsourced to a remote
processor.

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o Advantages:
• Massive cost and energy savings by enabling the reuse and reallocation of
the same processing resource.
• It ensures the massive scalability of solutions, without significantly
affecting the cost of the deployment.
o Drawback:
• It requires a lot of network bandwidth
• Need good network connectivity between the sensor nodes and the remote
processing infrastructure.
ii. Collaborative processing: Here Sensors cooperatively process data from multiple
sources to serve a high-level task. It typically finds use in scenarios with limited or no
network connectivity. Figure 6.4 shows the collaborative processing topology for
collaboratively processing data locally.

o Advantages:
• This topology can be quite economical for large-scale deployments spread
over vast areas where remote infrastructure is not viable.
• This approach also reduces latencies due to the transfer of data over the
network.
• It conserves the bandwidth of the network, especially those connecting to the
Internet.
• This topology can be quite beneficial for applications such as agriculture.
o Drawback:
• This topology needs costlier mesh networks for implementation.
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6.4 IoT Device Design and Selection Considerations: ***** The processor is the main
factor for IoT device design and selection for various applications. Other important
considerations to design an IoT device are
1. Size
2. Energy
3. Cost
4. Memory
5. Processing power
6. I/O rating
7. Add-ons

1. Size: Size and energy consumption are crucial factors of a sensor node. The larger the
size factor consumes more energy. Additionally, large-size factors are not suitable for
many IoT applications.
2. Energy: Energy efficient processor is the most important factor in designing IoT-
based sensing solutions. The higher the energy requirements, the higher the battery
replacement frequency. This principle is not a good option for IoT-based
applications.
3. Cost: Cheaper cost of the hardware enables a much higher density of hardware
deployment. For example, cheaper gas and fire detection solutions would enable
users to include much more sensing hardware for a lesser cost.
4. Memory: devices with higher memory tend to be costlier. But 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.
5. Processing power: In deciding what type of sensors can be accommodated with the
IoT device/node, and what processing features can integrate on-site. The processing
power also decides the type of applications the device can be associated with. For
example, if the application involves video or audio needs more processing power than
other simple sensing IoT applications.
6. Input /output (I/O) rating: Primarily the processor, is the deciding factor in
determining the circuit complexity, energy usage, and requirements for support of
various sensing solutions and sensor types. Some processors have a meager I/O
voltage rating of 3.3 V, as compared to 5 V for somewhat older processors. This

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needs additional voltage and logic conversion circuitry and increases the cost and
complexity of the node.
7. Add-ons: IoT device provides, such analog to digital conversion (ADC) units,
connections to USB and ethernet, and inbuilt wireless access capabilities for various
IoT applications. These add-ons also decide how fast a solution can be developed
others helps in defining the robustness and usability of a processor or IoT device in

resource-intensive computational tasks to a separate external device in the network. It

is important for the development of densely deployable, energy-conserving,
miniaturized, and cheap IoT-based solutions for sensing tasks.
Figure 6.5 shows the 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. For
the majority of IoT applications, the bulk of the processing is carried out remotely to
keep the on-site devices simple, small, and economical.

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▪ The processing procedure is as follows:

• For off-site processing, data from the sensing layer can be forwarded to the fog
or cloud or contained within the edge layer.
• The edge layer makes use of devices within the local network to process data
that is similar to the collaborative processing topology as shown in fig 6.4
• Fog nodes are localized within a geographic area and serve the IoT node within
a small coverage area.
• Forwarding data to a cloud or a remote server requires the device to be
connected to the internet.
▪ Data offloading is divided into THREE parts:
1. Offload location:
(Where all the processing can be offloaded in the IoT architecture)
2. Offload decision:
(How to choose where to offload the processing to and by how much)
3. Offloading considerations:
(Deciding when to offload)

1. Offload location: The choice of offload location decides the applicability, cost, and
sustainability of the IoT application and deployment. The offload location into FOUR
types:
(a) Edge (b) Fog
(c) Remote server (d) Cloud

i. 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.
ii. Fog: Fog computing is a decentralized computing infrastructure. 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.
iii. 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.
iv. Cloud: A cloud is provisioned for processing offloading so that processing
resources can be rapidly provisioned with minimal effort over the Internet, which

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can be accessed globally. Cloud enables massive scalability of solutions.

2. Offload decision making: The choice of where to offload and how much to offload is
addressed considering data generation rate, network bandwidth, the criticality of
applications, processing resource available at the offload site, and other factors. Main
three approaches are as follows.
a) Naive Approach
b) Bargaining-based approach
c) Learning-based approach

a. Naive Approach: This rule-based approach, in which the data from IoT devices
are offloaded to the nearest location based on the achievement of certain offload
criteria. Statistical measures are consulted for generating the rules.
b. Bargaining-based approach: To maximize the quality of service (bandwidth,
latencies) by reaching a point where the qualities of certain parameters are
reduced, while the others are enhanced. QoS is achieved collaboratively for better
full implementation.
c. Learning-based approach: It relies on past behavior and trends of data flow
through the IoT architecture. The optimization of QoS parameters is done by
learning from historical trends and trying to optimize previous solutions further
and enhance the collective behavior of the IoT implementation.

3. Offloading considerations: *** offloading parameters need to be considered while

deciding upon the offloading type to choose arising from the nature of the IoT
application and the hardware being used to interact with the application. These
parameters are as follows.

• Data volume

▪ Bandwidth: The maximum amount of data that can be simultaneously transmitted

over the network between two points. The bandwidth of a wired or wireless network
is also considered to be its data-carrying capacity and often used to describe the data

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rate of that network.

▪ Latency: It is the time delay between the start and completion of an operation, which
is due to physical limitations of the infrastructure in the network or the processor
which is associated with an operation.
▪ Criticality: It defines importance of a task being pursued by an IoT application. The
more critical a task is, the lesser latency is expected. For example, detection of fires
using an IoT solution has higher criticality than detection of agricultural field
parameters.
▪ Resources: It signifies the actual capabilities (like processing power, the analytical
algorithm, etc) of an offload location.
▪ Data volume: The amount of data generated by a source or sources that can be
simultaneously handled by the offload location. 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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