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IoT Interoperability Architectures: Comparative Study

Chapter · January 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91337-7_20

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 IoT Interoperability Architectures: Comparative
Study

Rachida AitAbdelouahid1*, Loubna Chhiba1, Abdelaziz Marzak2, Abdelaziz

Mamouni3, Nawal Sael4
1*, 1,2,3,4
Laboratory of technology of information and modeling Faculty of sciences
Ben M’sik, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco
rachida.aitbks@gmail.com1*, chhibaloubna@gmail.com1,
marzak@hotmail.com2, mamouni.abdelaziz@gmail.com3,
saelnawal@gmail.com4

Abstract. Internet of things or IoT for short is a global infrastructure of the

information society which provides advanced services by interconnecting
physical and virtual objects. This interconnection will be existed or evolved
interoperable information and communication technologies. Currently, different
existing platforms provide several such technologies with a special complexity.
This generates a high cost at interoperability level. In order to mitigate this
drawback, in this paper, we present and describe in detail a comparative study
of different existing IoT interoperability architectures according to protocols
and technologies used as well as their advantages and limitations.

Keywords: Internet of Things, Distributed architecture, Interoperability, virtual

objects.

1 Introduction
Currently, most of IoT platforms allows, via systems of electronic identification
normalized (standardized) and wireless, to identify and to communicate
numerically the virtual world with physical objects to be able to measure and
exchange data between them. This communication bases itself on a distributed
architecture by communicating with messages through the network. IoT is thus
allowed, using systems of electronic identification normalized and unified, and
wireless mobile devices to identify without ambiguity of the digital entities and the
physical objects directly and so to be able to recover, store, transfer and deal
without discontinuity between the physical and virtual worlds, the data being
connected with it. Currently, different existing platforms provide several
technologies with a special complexity. This generates a high cost at
interoperability level with the other IoT platforms. The internet of things, in which
the objects of the everyday life can be equipped with capacities of identification,
detection and treatment, offer important advantages both in terms of efficiency and
new services. To benefit from the full potential of the IoT, objects do not just have
to be simply connected to Internet, they must also be found, accessible, managed
and connected potentially to other objects. To allow this interaction, one degree of
interoperability is necessary which goes beyond the simple interoperability
protocol such as supplied by the Internet. To mitigate this issue, this paper aims to
present a clear view of the connected objects and their interoperability
architectures as well as adapted technologies and fields of application. This paper
is organized as follows. The second section consists of a balance sheet regarding
the already existing IoT architectures of interoperability. The third section is
dedicated to present a comparative study of the IoT interoperability architectures.
The fourth section is dedicated to present a synthetic study. Finally, the last section
presents a conclusion of the recapitulative of the study realized and future
perspectives.

2 Related works
Classically, the interoperability is the connection of the people, the data and the
diversified systems [1].Interoperability is of great importance and relevance in
large systems and should be seen as a requirement. To be interoperable means to
be able to exchange streams of various kinds and to share the elements realized by
these flows with confidence in order to carry out an action that is independent of
the environment with which these flows exchange [1]. In literature, many works
were conducted in this area; most of them focus on proposing new architectures
and new approaches to support IoT interoperability. (Pratikkumar et al., 2013) [2],
have proposed a semantic Web-based IoT architecture to ensure interoperability
between systems, using established communication and data standards. This
architecture allows the discovery of physical sensors and the interpretation of
messages between objects, using the SGS (Semantic Gateway as a Service), which
allows the translation between messaging protocols such as XMPP (Extensible
Messaging and Presence Protocole), CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol)and
MQTT(Message Queue Telemetry Transport) via an architecture multiprotocol
proxy. As well as the use of W3C's Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) ontology for
semantic annotations of sensor data provides semantic interoperability between
messages and supports semantic reasoning to obtain knowledge that can be used at
higher levels from low-level sensor data. However, this solution is not secure in
term of confidentiality of data exchanged and limited in term of functionality and
cost to the technologies implemented. (Black et al., 2014)[3], have proposed a new
architecture of conception and super imposing which meets the requirements of the
IoT. This approach is mainly based on protocols distributed by hash table to
supply the required flexibility. For that, Black et al., have partitioned networks in
two main parts: points of accesses and intelligent objects, which are based on two
protocols viz; system chord and virtual cord protocol. The proposed approach
treats effectively cases of mobility. However, this solution is not able to optimize
resources consumption and their cost. (Ghofrane, 2015)[4], has proposed an
approach based on distributed hash table systems and the VCP protocol (Virtual
Cord Protocol). Since intelligent objects are placed on a massive scale in all parts
of the world, they have divided the network into two main parts: the first part
consists of access points and the second part consists of intelligent objects. Access
points have significant memory sizes and processing capabilities. They are static
and have no energy constraints because they have access to power supply. This
allows them to have extensive coverage. Each access point is responsible for
intelligent objects in its coverage. It stores important information related to these
intelligent objects. This architecture provides a higher degree of interoperability as
well as some flexibility and mobility taking advantage of technologies such as
REST and JSON architecture. However, the cost of the technologies used is very
high. (Aloi et al., 2017) [5] , have proposed and deployed complete mobile
gateway software architecture to support IoT interoperability through a
Smartphone-centric application. It is based on a multi-standard, multi-interface and
multi-technology communication framework capable of integrating different
communication standards and radio interfaces into an entire platform. The
presented solution allows the continuous collection and transmission of data from
wireless IoT devices and sensors transmitted on different interfaces and
communication standards. In addition, it can send control messages or data
streams, such as streaming video, to neighboring IoT devices in an opportunistic
manner. The results obtained using a real test bench on various common smart
phones show that the proposed software architecture is capable of acting as a data
collector, disseminating and managing by allowing new ubiquitous and transient
services without make excessive use of hardware resources in terms of
CPU(Central Process Unit) and memory. However, this architecture is not
efficiency in term of energy consumption level. (Antonio et al., 2017) [6] , have
proposed a relevant approach which present a distributed software-controlled
sector aware spectrum sensing architecture, in order to store and analyze the
spectrum usage information. This approach has been integrated to a future Internet
architecture called Nova Genesis. This later makes it possible to develop more
efficient platforms which optimize the consumption of resources, with a low cost
of detection and low power consumption, as well as it is based on a heterogynous
technologies like cognitive radios network, bands RF, Restful and is mainly based
on different protocols like HTTP, TCP/IP/Ethernet, SCC/SSS, SeroMQ which
makes it possible to provide platforms with better confidentiality and a simple
access to data exchanged. However, the proposed solution is not secure at the data
confidentiality level.

3 Comparative Study
In this section, we present a comparative study of the IoT interoperability
architectures studied in the previous section in tabular format. To compare these
different architectures, we have based on the following criteria:
• Protocols: Many M2M (Machine to Machine)devices for IoTs use different
protocols for communication (ex, COAP, XMPP, RESTFUL, MQTT, RDF,
XML, WIFI, ZWANE, NFC, ZIGBEE and 4G);
• Technologies: Most IoT interoperability architectures are focused on certain
technologies (ex, cognitive radios, RF bands, REST, hub and JSON);
• Application domain: Each IoT interoperability architectures is designed to be
used in a field of application such as transport, intelligent vile, health, home
automation, and more;
• Confidentiality: Each IoT platform is protected against unauthorized access
such as access control and access audit;
• Efficiency: This feature is related to the ability of an IoT solution to provide
desirable performance at the level of usage and minimization of resources
(CPU, memory, disk, etc) consumption, as well as how to run, speed
archiving. The effectiveness of time and resource behaviour is distinct. IoT
devices suffer from limited battery life and dominate power consumption.
Hence the need for energy efficiency that can be increased by judiciously
adjusting transmission power or optimizing the use of technologies.
Therefore, there is a need for solutions that limit the energy consumption of
these IoT devices;
• Mobility: This feature is simply used in IoTs applications; it refers to the ease
of connecting users to IoT application information in a quick and efficient
manner.
• Flexibility: (Adaptability): Ease of adding / modifying / removing
functionality: Modularity, generality, extensibility, auto descriptively;
• Distributed model: A distributed system is a model in which components
located on networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions by
passing messages [7]. The components interact with each other in order to
achieve a common goal. Three significant characteristics of distributed
systems are: concurrency of components, lack of a global clock, and
independent failure of components [8]. Examples of distributed systems vary
from SOA-based systems to massively multiplayer online games to peer-to-
peer applications;
• Cost: It mains the cost of energy consumed and resources used in different
IoT platforms and devices;
• Functionality: The ability of a proposed architecture to deliver functions that
respond to explicit and implicit needs in a given context, for the IoTs
applications, functional specifications means the ability to provide the
appropriate functions to meet the specific tasks and the needs of the user with
the degree of accuracy expected, for IoTs platforms it is the ability to interact
with one or more specified systems; finally, the cost.
Table 1 below summarizes the various IoT interoperability architectures and Table
2 summarizes the advantages and limitations of these architectures. We have
defined seven criteria for comparing these different architectures, viz; the criteria
of confidentiality, efficiency, mobility, flexibility, distributed model, cost, and
functionality.
 Table 1.Comparative study of IoT interoperability architectures

Features

Confidentiality

Efficiency

Mobility

Flexibility

Model
Distributed

Cost

Functionality
References

(Ghofrane, 2015) [4] x x x x x

(G. Aloi,et al., x x x x x x

2017) [5]
(Pratikkumar et x x x x
al.,2013) [2]
(Mike et al., 2014) x x x x
[3]
(Antonio et al., x x x x x x
2017) [6]

Table 2.Advantages and limitations of IoT interoperability architectures

References Protocols Technologies Application Advantages Limitations

Domains
Features
(Ghofrane,20 -Système - Smart Smart -Distributed - High cost
15) [4] chord Bluetooth Cities architecture -Do not
- VCP -Flexible optimize the
-DHT117/ -mobile resources
MOBYDHT
(G. Aloi et -WIFI -Smart Traffic - Reduce use -Gourmand
al., 2017) [5] -ZWANE phone Managem of material at level of
-NFC ent resources energy
-ZIGBEE - acts as a
-4G flexible
interface and
transparent
-mobile
(Pratikkumar -CoAP - SGS Smart - Ensure -Luck of
et al., 2013) -XMPP -SemSOS Home connectivity security at
-MQTT -SSN Health between silos the data
[2]
-RDF -Ontology Care -provides confidentialit
-XML -REST semantic y level
-JSON interoperabilit -Does not
 y between optimize
messages resources
supports -functionality
semantic limited
reasoning
(Mike et al., -HTTP -HUB Smart -Mobile -Gourmand
2014) [3] -JSON Streets -Flexible at the level of
-REST - energy
Efficiency

(Antonio et -HTTP -RRC Transport -allow -Do not

al., 2017) [6] -TCP/IP -Bandes network detecting secure at the
-SeroMQ RF cost data
-RESTful -Low power confidentialit
consumption y level

4 Discussion
As shown in tables 1 and 2 above, there is no IoT interoperability architecture that
strongly meets all predefined criteria. Moreover, despite the diversity of
architectures and their usefulness, these solutions are often very limited, they deal
with problems in isolation, most proposals do not meet the requirements and
specificities requested and do not take into account all areas of application, see
also that many works do not meet the new requirements which have emerged in
the field of software engineering, in particular, interoperability, mobility and
confidentiality. Most of these architectures allow to answer certain interoperability
problems but according to a single application domain. More specifically, the
architecture proposed by (Pratikkumar and al., 2013) [2] makes it possible to
develop more efficient platforms which optimizes the consumption of resources,
with efficient execution and storage. As well as this architecture is based on the
technologies of the web service like CoAP, XMPP, MQTT, JSON, RD and XML,
which makes it possible to provide platforms with better confidentiality and a
simple access to data exchanged. The architecture proposed by (Mike et al., 2014)
[3] makes it possible to develop platforms protected against unauthorized access
with the ease of changing the execution environment (operating system, hardware,
etc.), this is due to the use of JSON and REST web-service technologies. Also, this
architecture is deployed in a distributed environment. The architecture proposed
by (Ghofrane, 2015) [4], in the domain of smart cities, is mainly based on tree core
technologies viz; Hub, Json and Restful, and makes it possible to develop mobile
and flexible platforms that are accessible at any time using HTTP protocol. The
architecture developed by (G. Aloi, al., 2017) [5], makes it possible to develop
mobile platforms that are accessible at any time using mobile technologies such as
Smart phones. The field of communication, they allow anybody, wherever it is, to
remain in constant contact, thus making it possible to take advantage of all the
protocols that are available in this technology like Wifi, Zwane, NFC, Zigbee and
4G. This allows a better optimization of the cost of developing platforms based on
this architecture. The architecture proposed by (Antonio and al., 2017) [6] allows
the developed platforms to deliver the functions responding to explicit and implicit
needs in a given context. It is based on Restful web-service technology and
cognitive radios networks that enable low-cost detection. Therefore, from these
two tables, we find after the analysis that despite the diversity of these
architectures and their usefulness, they have shown some crucial limitations and
weaknesses namely:
• Most of these architectures do not meet the requirements of mobility,
functionality, efficiency and cost optimization;
• The vast majority of these architectures are limited to a specific application
domain;
• These architectural proposals generally limited tothe level of energy
consumption;
• Most of them do not offer the ability to deliver platforms that interact with one
or more specified systems, which also offer relevant, accurate, secure and
compliant functionality;
• None of these architectures presents a generic model taking into account all
protocols and technologies and their use cases.

5 Conclusion and future work

In this paper, we have presented and described in detail a comparative study of
different existing IoT interoperability architectures according to protocols and
technologies used as well as their advantages and limitations. This study have
identified a set of original seven criteria viz; confidentiality, efficiency, cost,
flexibility, mobility, model of architecture, and functionality. Basing on these
criteria, this study shows after the analysis that despite the diversity of these
architectures and their usefulness, they have shown some crucial limitations and
weaknesses namely: Most of these architectures do not meet the requirements of
mobility, functionality, efficiency, and cost optimization; the vast majority of them
are limited to a specific application domain; most of them do not offer the ability
to deliver platforms that interact with one or more specified systems, which also
offer relevant, accurate, secure and compliant functionality; finally, none of these
architectures presents a generic model taking into account all protocols and
technologies and their use cases. In order to mitigate the limitations of existing
architectures, we planning in our future work to propose a new architecture
allowing to improve and to support IoT interoperability.
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