Federating Autonomous IoT Silos: Fed4IoT Approach

Federating Autonomous IoT Silos:Fed4IoT Approach

NAKAZATO Hidenori

Waseda University

25 November 2020

Copyright ©2021 by NAKAZATO Hidenori. All rights reserved.

Last Revised at 17:39 November 25, 2020.

Federating Autonomous IoT Silos: Fed4IoT Approach

ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 1/41

IoT is Growing

▶ The market is expected to reach $ 1,600B globally by 20241

▶ Growth is 21.1% annually from 2016 to 2024

▶ M2M connections will grow 2.4-fold from 2018 to 2023

6.1

7.4

8.9

10.6

12.5

14.7

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

16.0

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Billions of

Connections

19% CAGR2018–2023

Source: Cisco Annual Internet Report, 2018–2023

1Kenneth Research Report, https://www.kennethresearch.com/report-details/internet-of-things-iot-market/10325467




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https://www.kennethresearch.com/report-details/internet-of-things-iot-market/10325467

Smart City

▶ Smart City: A city or region that utilizes ICT and other new technologies tomanage issues it is faced with and to perform overall optimization in asustainable fashion

▶ Expenditure for smart city is expected to top $189.5B globally2

▶ Smart city platform market in Japan exceeds JPY 1T in 20233

(Here smart city platform includes software, services, and devices used to provide smart city services)

2IDC, Worldwide Smart Cities Spending Guide, https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prJPJ45347819

3NRI, https://statdb.jp/facts/41525




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 3/41

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prJPJ45347819

https://statdb.jp/facts/41525

IoT Platforms

▶ IoT Platform: A set of common functions used in IoT systems

▶ oneM2M : A partnership project to standardize IoT platform▶ 7 standardization bodies from Europe, Japan, US, China, and Korea formed

oneM2M in 2012▶ Release-3 specification was published in 2018

▶ FIWARE : An open source IoT platform▶ Initially developed in FP7 project FI-PPP▶ FIWARE Foundation promotes FIWARE




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 4/41

IoT Systems are Silos

▶ IoT systems in individual application fields are built

▶ Most of the IoT systems are silos: they are build ground up

▶ Starting an IoT service requires large investment

▶ Interworking among IoT systems is difficult




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Federation Required

▶ City OS▶ Defined in Smart City Reference Architecture

White Paper published by Cross-ministerialStrategic Innovation Promotion Program ofJapanese Government

▶ City OS: a set of system functionalities whichenable access to a variety of data providedfrom/to Smart City Assets as well as externalsystems and then achieves appropriate brokeringof such data with Smart City Services

▶ Features in City OS are:▶ interoperability▶ data exchange▶ scalability




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Federation Required

▶ The features in City OS are fundamental in Smart Cities for efficient deliveryand exchange of services and data

Smart City (City OS)

Smart City (City OS)

app

app

interoperabilitydata exchange




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 7/41

Fed4IoT

▶ Fed4IoT4 is an EU-JP joint research project▶ Objective:

▶ Interoperability of IoT systems▶ Reduction of initial cost in developing IoT services

▶ Partners:

4The research leading to these results has been supported by the EU-JAPAN initiative by the EC Horizon 2020 Work Programme

(2018-2020) Grant Agreement No.814918 and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications “Strategic Information and CommunicationsR&D Promotion Programme (SCOPE)” Grant no. JPJ000595, “Federating IoT and cloud infrastructures to provide scalable and interoperableSmart Cities applications, by introducing novel IoT virtualization technologies (Fed4IoT)”.




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Interoperability of IoT Systems

▶ Connecting by agents with thing-by-thing basis▶ Converting IoT data to a unified format




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Initial Cost Reduction

▶ Reuse IoT devices▶ One camera can be used for

▶ counting # waiting passengers▶ detecting people to turn on the

light, and▶ surveillance.

IoT A

IoT B

IoT C




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 10/41


▶ Share IoT devices and IoT infrastructure

Tenant: Bob

Tenant: Hana

Bob’s App

Hana’s Appinterworking

domain

IoT system A

IoT system A




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 11/41


▶ Isolated IoT service development/execution environment

Tenant

Data

Domain

broker

(oneM2M)

Bob’s env Tenant: Bob

Tenant: Hana

Tenant

Data

Domain

Hana’s env

Bob’s App

Hana’s App

broker

(FIWARE)

interworking domain




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 12/41

Virtual Things

▶ Virtual Things are emulation of real things▶ Real things, or IoT devices, are virtualized as Virtual Things

An

aly

tics #

1

Virtual Person

Counter

RealCamera

An

aly

tics #

2 Virtual Face Detection

Sensor

Virtualization

Virtual Thermometer

RealThermometers

An

aly

tics Virtual

Precise

Thermometer

Virtualization

Real Drone with camerawith camer

Virtual Camera #1

Virtual Camera #1

Virtual Camera #2




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 13/41

Virtual Things

▶ Virtual Thing is a concept to buffer accesses to real things

▶ The buffer provides the opportunity to insert access authentication, access synchronization,

data conversion, etc.▶ Access control and access synchronization are required for sharing

→ IoT device sharing▶ Access control regulates access to real things thing-by-thing basis

→ IoT service domain federation▶ Data conversion is necessary to connect heterogeneous IoT service domains to a unified

communication platform→ IoT service domain federation

interworking domainIoT system A

Virtual Thing

unified format

・ access authentication

・ access synchronization

・ data conversion, etc.




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ThingVisor

▶ A ThingVisor is a software component

▶ ThingVisors virtualize IoT devices to VirtualThings

▶ ThingVisors connect heterogeneous IoT servicedomains to a unified communication platform byinserting data format conversion

▶ It bridges between shared IoT device(s) and IoTservice application(s) for sharing

Real

Things

ThingVisor

Virtual

Things

analytics

dronecontrol

data copy




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 15/41

Virtual Silos

▶ Isolated IoT service application development/execution environment▶ Isolation is important to develop software▶ Interference from other programs cause unexpected outcome▶ Controlling actuation is a key for isolation

▶ Providing development environment familiar to each developer




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Virtual Silos

▶ Each Virtual Silo contains an IoT broker of tenant’s choice▶ Virtual Things are added to Virtual Silos to use/control the Virtual Things

Tenant

Data

Domain

broker

(oneM2M)

Bob’s silo Tenant: Bob

Tenant: Hana

Tenant

Data

Domain

Hana’s silo

Bob’s App

Hana’s App

broker

(FIWARE)

Virtual SilosVirtual Things




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Cloud Computing vs Cloud of Things (VirIoT)




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 18/41

VirIoT Architecture

▶ Microservice

▶ Edge-computing

▶ Efficient datadissemination

▶ Kubernetes

▶ Open-source

RootData

Domain

System vSiloController

NGSI-LDSystem vSilo

Federation

Bob

Master Controller

vThing 1.a

vThing 1.b

vThing 1.c

ThingVisor 1

vThing 2.a

vThing 2.b

vThing 2.c

ThingVisor 2

vThing x.a

vThing x.b

vThing x.c

ThingVisor x

vThing 3.a

vThing 3.b

vThing 3.c

ThingVisor 3

MQTT and HTTPService Mesh

OpenData(WEB)

He

tero

ge

ne

ou

s Io

T S

yste

ms

with

ÊRe

al T

hin

gs

REST API

ThingVisor FactoryThingVisor Factory

SecurityPlug-in

SystemDatabase

VirIoTCLI

Tenant Administrator

data planecontrol plane

oneM2M vSiloControllers

oneM2MvSilo a

NGSI vSiloControllers

NGSIvSilo b

Hana

Lucas

NGSI-LD vSiloControllers

NGSI-LDvSilo c

MQTT vSiloControllers

MQTTvSilo d

upstream IoTPlatforms

Andrea

Image Repository




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Data Plane

▶ Telemetry data plane▶ Data topics on a

MQTT servicemesh made of acluster of MQTTservers

▶ NGSI-LD asinternal neutralformat translatedby vSilo IoTControllers

▶ Content data plane

(e.g. video streaming)▶ Raw contents on

HTTP service meshmade of a cluster ofHTTP Proxies




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 20/41

Control Plane

▶ Control Topics onthe MQTT servicemesh

▶ Control Commandsand Procedures




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VirIoT over Kubernetes: EU-JP Deployment

▶ Kubernetes

▶ VPN

▶ Zone labels tosupport edgecomputing

▶ Service topologyfeature to routetraffic towardsclosestMQTT/HTTPserver▶ Low latency▶ Low bandwidth

consumption




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 22/41

Cloud of Things (VirIoT): Essential CharacteristicsInspired from NIST definition of cloud computing

▶ On-demand self-service▶ a consumer can unilaterally provision IoT resources, such as Virtual Things, IoT

Broker and Virtual Silos, as needed automatically without requiring humaninteraction with each service provider.

▶ Broad IoT access▶ IoT resources are available over the network and accessed through heterogeneous

IoT standard mechanisms, such as those specified by NGSI, NGSI-LD, oneM2M,etc.

▶ Broad support of IoT devices▶ Support of heterogeneous IoT sensors and actuators producing or consuming

telemetry data and generic HTTP contents (images, streams, etc.)▶ Resource pooling

▶ Underlying computing and IoT resources (real things, open data, etc.) arepooled to serve multiple consumers with different physical and virtual resourcesdynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 23/41

Further Development

▶ ThingVisor Factory

▶ ThingVisor Chaining

▶ Application of Information Centric Networking




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 24/41

ThingVisor Factory

RootData

Domain

System vSiloController

NGSI-LDSystem vSilo

Federation

Bob

Master Controller

vThing 1.a

vThing 1.b

vThing 1.c

ThingVisor 1

vThing 2.a

vThing 2.b

vThing 2.c

ThingVisor 2

vThing x.a

vThing x.b

vThing x.c

ThingVisor x

vThing 3.a

vThing 3.b

vThing 3.c

ThingVisor 3

MQTT and HTTPService Mesh

OpenData(WEB)

He

tero

ge

ne

ou

s Io

T S

yste

ms

with

ÊRe

al T

hin

gs

REST API

ThingVisor FactoryThingVisor Factory

SecurityPlug-in

SystemDatabase

VirIoTCLI

Tenant Administrator

data planecontrol plane

oneM2M vSiloControllers

oneM2MvSilo a

NGSI vSiloControllers

NGSIvSilo b

Hana

Lucas

NGSI-LD vSiloControllers

NGSI-LDvSilo c

MQTT vSiloControllers

MQTTvSilo d

upstream IoTPlatforms

Andrea

Image Repository




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 25/41

ThingVisor Factory

▶ Support implementation and deployment of ThingVisors on demand

▶ Support Docker/Kubernetes environment▶ Equipped with GUI

▶ GUI of ThingVisor Factory is an extension of Node-RED

▶ Achieve efficient resource utilization for k8s/VirIoT computing nodes▶ Virtual Things are created with “Service Function Chaining”




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ThingVisor Chaining

▶ ThingVisor Factory creates Virtual Things using a chain of ThingVisors

ThingVisor Chaining




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 27/41

ThingVisor Chaining

▶ ThingVisor developers design a chain of ThingVisors using ThingVisor Factory▶ The chain of ThingVisors are deployed over a network

▶ Computing resources are distributed over the network




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Architecture of ThingVisor Factory

ThingVisor Factori

VirIoT system




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 29/41

ThingVisor Factory Controller

Provide APIs to call function blocks for ThingVisor Factory, VirIoT MasterController and Kubernetes▶ CRUD for ThingVisors and ThingVisor chains

▶ For designing on-demand ThingVisors▶ Schedule for ThingVisor deployment

▶ Determine deployment nodes and allocated resources▶ Add-thingvisor

▶ For deployment of ThingVisors to VirIoT system▶ CRUD for Kubernetes deployment

▶ For deployment of ThingVisors to a native Kubernetes environment

ThingVisor Factory

Controller

VirIoTMaster Controller

KubernetesMaster Controller

ThingVisor

ThingVisorThingVisor

ThingVisor

Register Database

ThingVisor chain

Create DeployCopyright ©2021 by NAKAZATO Hidenori. All rights reserved.



ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 30/41

Service Designer

▶ Provide high usability interfacefor designing ThingVisors

▶ Extend from Node-RED

▶ Node-RED▶ Local environment▶ JavaScript

▶ ThingVisor Factory▶ Specify protocols: ICN

and Pub/Sub▶ Network wide▶ Python

▶ Output ThingVisor chain requestby formatting JSON




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Service Deploy Manager

▶ Performance Monitoring▶ Computing resources: Kubernetes APIs (e.g., kubectl top)

▶ CPU and Memory usage

▶ Network and other performances: ThingVisor logger▶ Throughput, input and output data size, and processing time

▶ Optimize ThingVisor deployment▶ Determine optimal deployment nodes and resource allocations

▶ Solve routing for ThingVisor chaining




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Application of Information Centric Networking

▶ Information Centric Networking (ICN) forwards packets with content namesinstead of IP address

▶ Name-based forwarding is handy for executing a chain of ThingVisors▶ It is not the case in Pub/Sub, i.e., MQTT

▶ In-network caching capability can also be exploited in executing chains offunctions




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Communication Model in ICN

Communication is performed using two types of packets: Interest packet and Datapacket

Information Centric NetworkInterest packet

Data packet

content server

user terminal

content name

▶ A user requests a content using an Interest packet

▶ Content names in Interest packets specifiy the packet destinations

▶ The content server with the requested content returns a Data packetcontaining the requested content




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ThingVisor Chaining with ICN

▶ Extension of ICN for service function chaining, or ThingVisor Chaining▶ Interest packet can specify a sequence of functions and a content▶ After deriving the content, Data packet goes through functions to process the

content

user




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In-Network Caching

Routers can cache contents

server

content: Xcontent: X

cacheX content

Data packet

▶ Routers temporarily hold the content included in Data packets passing by




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 36/41

In-Network Caching

▶ A requested content can be derived without going all the way to its serverusing this mechanism

server

content: Xcontent: X

X

X content

Interest packet

Data packet

▶ It can avoid congestion around servers and their surrounding network

▶ Content caching became available due to name-based packet delivery and packet signature▶ Without content name, cached content cannot be matched with requested content▶ Without par-packet signature, suspicious contents may be cached and delivered




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Caching in ThingVisor Chaining

▶ ThingVisors are typically executed periodically due to the nature of IoTsystems

▶ Each ThingVisor in a chain may be periodically executed autonomously andcache its execution result

▶ Without explicit sequential execution, an execution chain can be formed▶ Latency may be reduced

Data packet/sensor/f1/f2

Data packet/sensor/f1

Data packet/sensor/f1/f2/f3

Data packet/sensor/f1/f2/f3

pseudo-

consumer: c1

pseudo-

consumer: c2

pseudo-

consumer:c3

f1 f3f2




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 38/41

Conclusion

▶ IoT systems are ballooning and Smart Cities are being developed

▶ Federating those systems is the next step development▶ Fed4IoT is an EU-JP joint research project to federate IoT systems and

introduces the concepts:▶ Virtual Things,▶ ThingVisors, and▶ Virtual Silos

to share IoT devices and infrastructures, and to promote IoT data exchange

▶ Fed4IoT project is hoping to encourage development of IoT services by lowerCAPEX

▶ Software is avaiable at GitHub




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Reference

▶ Project web site : https://fed4iot.org

▶ GitHub of software : https://github.com/fed4iot/VirIoT

▶ Video of VirIoT software in Action : https://fed4iot.org/wp-content/uploads/ftp/VirIoT-in-Action.mp4




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https://fed4iot.org

https://github.com/fed4iot/VirIoT

https://fed4iot.org/wp-content/uploads/ftp/VirIoT-in-Action.mp4

https://fed4iot.org/wp-content/uploads/ftp/VirIoT-in-Action.mp4

Thank youQuestions ?




ASON 2020 on 25-11-2020– 41/41

Federating Autonomous IoT Silos: Fed4IoT Approach

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