Internet of Things Architecture

Internet of Things – Architecture © - 72 -

3.4.4 Other information-related models in IoT-A

Throughout IoT-A several other information- related models exist. Most of them
are defined in the technical work packages WP2, WP3, WP4 and WP5. More
information can be found in the respective deliverables (see below):

 Entity model: The Entity Model specifies which attributes and features of

real word objects are represented by the virtual counterpart, i.e. the

Virtual Entity of the respective Physical Entity. For every attribute

specified in the entity model, services can be found that are able to either

provide information about the attribute (sensing) or manipulate it, leading

to an effect in the real world (actuating). More information about the

entity model can be found in Section 3.2.1 of [Heras 2011];

 Resource model: The Resource Model contains the information that is

essential to identify Resources by a unique identifier and to classify

Resources by their type, like sensor, actuator, processor or tag.

Furthermore the model specifies the geographic location of the

Resource, the Device the Resource is hosted on (if so) as well as the IoT

Services the Resource is exposed through. More information can be

found in [Martín 2012] in Section 3.3;

 Service description model: Services provide access to Resources and

are used to access information or to control Physical Entities. An IoT

Service accesses IoT Resources in order to provide information about

attributes of entities or manipulates them leading to an effect in the real

world. A Service Description describes a Service, using for instance a

service description language such as USDL [SAP Research]. For

more information see [Martín 2012] in Section 4.6.3;

 Event Model: Event models are quite essential in today‘s IoT

architectures, e.g. in the EPCglobal Information Services. Normally

events are used to track dynamic changes in a (software) system,

showing who or what has triggered it and when, where and why the

change occurred. Event representation and processing is specified in

section 4.2 of [Voelksen 2013].