Architectural Recommendations in Building a Network Based Secure, Scalable and Interoperable Internet of Things Middleware

Abstract

With every device capable of emitting data, the need to amass and process them in real time or near real time, along with ever growing user requirement of, information-on-demand, have paved the way for the sudden surge in the development of the theme Internet of Things (IoT). Even though this whole new technology looks fascinating in theory, its practical implementation and ongoing sustenance is something that will need a lot of thought, effort and careful planning. Several cloud based and network based cloud platforms/middleware solutions are available but a lot of them are either extremely complex to set up, or needs standardized solutions to be applied across all participating devices or would leave behind vivid security loopholes that can’t be curbed with ease considering the overall capability of the devices involved. Based on a previous research effort conducted by our team, detailed scrutiny of prominent existing IoT platforms/middleware solutions were performed. This effort has resulted in defining the core problem matrix which if addressed adequately could result in the development of a well balanced IoT middleware solution. This paper uses the problem matrix so identified as the roadmap in defining a Secure, Scalable, Interoperable Internet of Things Middleware.