دانلود رایگان مقاله تحلیل شکاف سیستم عامل اینترنت اشیا

abstract

We are experiencing an abundance of Internet-of-Things (IoT) middleware solutions that provide connectivity for sensors and actuators to the Internet. To gain a widespread adoption, these middleware solutions, referred to as platforms, have to meet the expectations of different players in the IoT ecosystem, including device providers, application developers, and end-users, among others. In this article, we evaluate a representative sample of these platforms, both proprietary and open-source, on the basis of their ability to meet the expectations of different IoT users. The evaluation is thus more focused on how ready and usable these platforms are for IoT ecosystem players, rather than on the peculiarities of the underlying technological layers. The evaluation is carried out as a gap analysis of the current IoT landscape with respect to (i) the support for heterogeneous sensing and actuating technologies, (ii) the data ownership and its implications for security and privacy, (iii) data processing and data sharing capabilities, (iv) the support offered to application developers, (v) the completeness of an IoT ecosystem, and (vi) the availability of dedicated IoT marketplaces. The gap analysis aims to highlight the deficiencies of today’s solutions to improve their integration to tomorrow’s ecosystems. In order to strengthen the finding of our analysis, we conducted a survey among the partners of the Finnish IoT program, counting over 350 experts, to evaluate the most critical issues for the development of future IoT platforms. Based on the results of our analysis and our survey, we conclude this article with a list of recommendations for extending these IoT platforms in order to fill in the gaps.

6. Conclusions

In this article, we have evaluated a number of available IoT platforms, both proprietary and open-source, that together form a representative sample of the IoT platform landscape. The IoT platforms were evaluated via a gap analysis that outlined their capability to (i) support the integration of heterogeneous hardware, (ii) provide sufficient data management mechanisms, (iii) support application developers, (iv) support the formation of ecosystems, as well as (v) provide the dedicated marketplaces for the IoT. Collectively, these capabilities reflect the needs of different players of the emerging IoT ecosystem, including the device vendors, the application developers, the providers of platforms and related services, and the end-users. We complemented the gap analysis with a survey conducted among the experts of the Finnish IoT program to evaluate the business opportunities, risks and the most important features that may emerge from filling in the highlighted gaps. Based on the results of the gap analysis and the survey, we compiled a list of recommendations, both for short and long term perspectives. Our recommendations are aimed at filling in the identified gaps in contemporary IoT platforms and include, among others, the development of a dedicated IoT marketplace, the availability of SDKs and open APIs, and the possibility to analyze data locally, flexibly control access to the platform and its data, as well as providing data processing and sharing mechanisms.