Key Points

1. Iot payback hits automation, service and efficiencies within and between organizations and systems
2. who is the oldest IoT developer I know?  me - 1980 - DuPont automated order inventory management real-time

Resources

Key Concepts

IoT Networking and Data Standards

https://networklessons.com/cisco/evolving-technologies/iot-standards-and-protocols

There are many protocols that have a direct or indirect role in IoT. We’ll focus on two protocol types in particular:

• Network protocols
• Data protocols

Network Protocols

The network protocols we use for IoT should be open standards because our IoT network has to support devices from multiple vendors. Proprietary protocols increase complexity because you then need devices that can translate between the different protocols.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is well established and we have been using IP for IT networks for a long time. This is one of the reasons why IP is also the main choice for IoT networks.

Using IPv6 is encouraged because there are no address space limitations as there are with IPv4. Solutions such as IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) or IPv6 Routing Protocol for LLNs (RPL) don’t even support IPv4, only IPv6.

Data Protocols

We need to transfer data between our devices and other systems such as an IoT platform. Some devices have sensors that push data at a regular interval. Other sensors work with a pull model where you have to request the information. There are several data protocols we can use in IoT. Here are three popular protocols:

• Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT)
• Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)
• Extensible Message and Presence Protocol (XMPP)

MQTT

MQTT is probably the most used protocol in IoT. It’s a lightweight message protocol that uses publish and subscribe operations to transmit data between a client and server. It uses TCP as the transport protocol.

Packets are tiny and require little bandwidth. MQTT uses a client-server model. The server is called a broker. There are two operations:

• Publish: a device (client) sends data to a broker (server).
• Subscribe: a device (client) wants to receive data from a broker (server).

http://mqtt.org/

MQTT Docs 

https://docs.oasis-open.org/mqtt/mqtt/v5.0/mqtt-v5.0.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zQzn9wEPG91T7PQOrl0vX7K1mDrkR2du/view?usp=sharing

CoAP

CoAP is also a lightweight protocol and was developed as a standard (RFC 7252). It’s based on a REST model. A server makes resources available under a URL and clients access these resources with GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE methods. It is easy to get started with CoAP because many developers are familiar with REST.

CoAP can carry different payload types including XML and JSON and uses UDP as the transport protocol.

XMPP

XMPP is an open standard (RFC6120) and is based on XML technology for real-time communication. It’s used for a range of applications including VoIP, instant messaging, and IoT.

XMPP has been around for a while and has proven scalability and security. There are many servers that have used XMPP for many years. Software is available for any programming language making it easy to get started. Because XMPP was originally an instant messaging protocol and uses XML, it has more overhead compared to a lightweight protocol like MQTT.

IoT protocols overview

https://www.sam-solutions.com/blog/internet-of-things-iot-protocols-and-connectivity-options-an-overview/

Types of IoT connections

Image Added

Network Toplogies

Wireless nets can also be categorized according to their topology, i.e. a connectivity configuration. There may be various combinations of connections between nodes: line, ring, star, mesh, fully connected, tree, bus.

Image Added

Network requirements for IoT

• The capacity to connect a large number of heterogeneous elements
• High reliability
• Real-time data transmission with minimum delays
• The ability to protect all data flows
• The ability to configure applications
• Monitoring and traffic management at the device level
• Cost-effectiveness for a large number of connected objects

IoT Protocols

MQTT

MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight protocol for sending simple data flows from sensors to applications and middleware.

The protocol functions on top of TCP/IP and includes three components: subscriber, publisher and broker. The publisher collects data and sends it to subscribers. The broker tests publishers and subscribers, checking their authorization and ensuring security.

MQTT suits small, cheap, low-memory and low-power devices.

Open DDS from OMG

DDS (Data Distribution Service) is an IoT standard for real-time, scalable and high-performance machine-to-machine communication. It was developed by the Object Management Group (OMG).

You can deploy DDS both in low-footprint devices and in the cloud.

The DDS standard has two main layers:

• Data-Centric Publish-Subscribe (DCPS), which delivers the information to subscribers
• Data-Local Reconstruction Layer (DLRL), which provides an interface to DCPS functionalities

AMQP for middleware

AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) is an application layer protocol for message-oriented middleware environments. It is approved as an international standard.

The processing chain of the protocol includes three components that follow certain rules.

1. Exchange — gets messages and puts them in the queues
2. Message queue — stores messages until they can be safely processed by the client app
3. Binding — states the relationship between the first and the second components

IoT Identity, Access and Accounting Concepts

Hyperledger White Paper - IoT Identity, Access and Accounting Concepts

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uURqvzqPEw7WzzH6JhDeg3VNnZhgYgBmM_TqOSejyEQ/edit#heading=h.ieq7eqxzqeyv

iot-Decentralized Access and Management for IoT Devices - White Paper – Smart Phone PoC.docx

The ever-increasing number of IoT devices carries huge security and data vulnerability risk. Technologists are busy developing solutions to protect and guard IoT devices and the data they generate and share, as well as developing trust models to validate not only IoT devices’ data but also the applications providing the end services.

IoT Definition

There are several definitions of Internet of Things (IoT) that vary based on the specific context in which the definition is being used. However, most definitions agree on some key characteristics of IoT including: 

• A group of physical objects, things, which are connected and accessible via the internet
•  The “thing” could be a robot in a factory,  a pacemaker attached to a human, or a temperature sensor in a food package. 
•  Each object has a unique ID and is capable of automatically collecting and sharing data.
• Some objects are programmable and capable of making certain decisions on their own.

Problem statement - identity, authn, authz, security, reputation

As the number of IoT devices is expected to grow exponentially over the years, managing and protecting these devices and the data they access and generate become more complex and challenging. The challenge spans multiple domains from people accessing services to organizations responsible for authenticating and authorizing access to devices and data. 

The lack of a robust, industry-grade IoT device management scheme leaves devices exposed to identity theft and also leaves data exposed to unauthorized access and manipulation. This issue is further exasperated when dealing with personalized applications and services where issues of identity validation, trust, consent, and attribute sharing are of paramount importance.

At a macro industry level, the proliferation of IoT devices in heterogeneous networks has created a fragmented identity management space. This fragmentation has caused a multiplicity of silos of identity management systems which significantly limit interoperability.

Image Added

Image Added

OpenHorizon LF eos IOT platform

Quick start docs

https://open-horizon.github.io/docs/

Overview of OpenHorizon architecture

https://open-horizon.github.io/docs/getting_started/overview_oh.html

Open Horizon provides you with edge computing features to help you manage and deploy workloads from a management hub cluster to edge devices and remote instances of OpenShift Container Platform or other Kubernetes-based clusters.

Architecture

The goal of edge computing is to harness the disciplines that have been created for hybrid cloud computing to support remote operations of edge computing facilities. Open Horizon is designed for that purpose.

The deployment of Open Horizon includes the management hub that runs in an instance of OpenShift Container Platform installed in your data center. The management hub is where the management of all of your remote edge nodes (edge devices and edge clusters) occurs.

These edge nodes can be installed in remote on-premises locations to make your application workloads local to where your critical business operations physically occur, such as at your factories, warehouses, retail outlets, distribution centers, and more.

The following diagram depicts the high-level topology for a typical edge computing setup:

Image Added

Quickstart for local test env

https://open-horizon.github.io/quick-start

Learning OpenHorizon - Developer view

https://open-horizon.github.io/docs/getting_started/developer_learning_path.html

OpenDDS concepts

https://objectcomputing.com/products/opendds

...

Opportunities

Home IOT networks

Andy Martin on Home Smart Networks

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andy-martin-387188a_blockchainthoughtfortheday-activity-6990242903004434432-TUQu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

 internet security is a big thing. Blockchain helps there in financial transaction security, of course, but can it help in other ways as well?

Home networks are becoming like small business networks but with no one (single) person responsible for security - except the home owner. There are too many moving parts and especially Chinese cheap smart devices for say Apple to take overall control.

This is my home network design, so far, as I move into Electric Cars (how do I reach the parking bay for my apartment), smart lights and plugs as I try to reduce walking requirements as my MS progresses and I can't really walk anymore, smart heating and WiFi music to all speakers around my home.

It's not a good idea to share your network password in exchange for smart functionality. This is my idea to mitigate that risk using the guest network to isolate untrusted devices.

There is a less obvious blockchain angle to this though. Why not use blockchain to confirm that each smart device is using trusted firmware? In that way we can stop hackers from say turning up the temperature on a million homes so the spike in demand crashes the electric grid. Or a hacker adding a device to my network to sniff network activity for useful data ir turn my network into a bot used for attacking other networks.

Can you improve on my design, pre-blockchain?

Image Added

Challenges

Solutions

Hyperchain Labs sensor integration with Blockchain

CrowPI test kit for Raspberry PI sensors

https://www.elecrow.com/crowpi-compact-raspberry-pi-educational-kit.html

$220

CrowPi is an educational tool based on Raspberry Pi, designed to help people learn electronics, programming, and basic computer science. CrowPi was first released on Kickstarter in May 2018 and won a very successful campaign. The initial users spoke highly of CrowPi and left several good riviews.

crowpi video intro

Image Added

Details

Next Steps

Related articles

...