Internet of Things – Architecture © 25
1 Executive summary
Today, Internet of Things (IoT) is used as a catchphrase by many sources. This
expression encompasses a galaxy of solutions somehow related to the world of
intercommunicating smart objects. These solutions show little or no interoperability
capabilities as usually they are developed for specific challenges in mind, following
specific requirements. Moreover, as the IoT umbrella covers totally different
application fields, it appears that development cycles and technologies used vary
enormously. As a consequence purely vertical and isolated solutions emerge while
only a more horizontal approach, where application silos share a common technical
grounding and common architectural principles, could eventually lead to a full fledge
Internet of Things.
While quite logical at this point, on the long run we believe that this situation is
unsustainable. As in the networking field, where several solutions emerged at its
infancy to leave place to a common model, the TCP/IP protocol suite, the emergence
of a common reference model for the IoT domain and the identification of reference
architectures can lead to a faster, more focused development and an exponential
increase of IoT-related solutions. These solutions can provide a strategic advantage
to mature economies, as new business models can leverage those technological
solutions providing room for economic development.
Leaving aside business considerations, and considering only the technical point of
view, the existing solutions do not address the scalability requirements of a future
IoT, both in terms of communication between and the manageability of devices.
Additionally, the IoT domain comprises several different governance models, which
are often incompatible. This leads to a situation where privacy and security are
treated on a per-case and per-legislation basis, retrofitting solutions to existing
designs, and this severely hampers portability, interoperability and deployment.
In our vision of the Internet of Things, the interoperability of solutions at the
communication level, as well as at the service level, has to be ensured across
various platforms.
This motivates, first, the creation of a Reference Model for the IoT domain in order
to promote a common understanding.
Second, businesses that want to create their own compliant IoT solutions should be
supported by a Reference Architecture that describes essential building blocks as
well as design choices to deal with conflicting requirements regarding functionality,
performance, deployment and security. Interfaces should be standardised, best
practices in terms of functionality and information usage need to be provided.