Internet of Things - Eclipse

Eclipse IoT is an ecosystem of entities (industry and academia) working together to create a foundation for IoT based exclusively on open source technologies. Their focus remains in the areas of producing open source implementations of IoT standard technology; creating open source frameworks and services for utilization in IoT solutions; and developing tools for IoT developers.

Smarthome Project

SmartHome is one of Eclipse IoT's major services. It aims to create a framework for building smart home solutions, and its focus remains heterogeneous environments, meaning assorted protocols and standards integration.

SmartHome provides uniform device and information access to facilitate interaction between devices. It consists of OSGi bundles capable of deployment in an OSGi runtime, with OSGi services defined as extension points.

OSGi bundles are Java class groups and other resources, which also include detailed manifest files. The manifest contains information on file contents, services needed to enhance class behavior, and the nature of the aggregate as a component. Review an example of a manifest below −

Bundle-Name : Hi Everyone                        // Bundle Name 
Bundle-SymbolicName : xyz.xyz.hievery1           // Header specifying an identifier 
Bundle-Description : A Hi Everyone bundle        // Functionality description 
Bundle-ManifestVersion : 2                       // OSGi specification 
Bundle-Version : 1.0.0                           // Version number of bundle 
Bundle-Activator : xyz.xyz.Activator             // Class invoked on bundle activation 
Export-Package : xyz.xyz.helloworld;version = "1.0.0" // Java packages available externally 
Import-Package : org.osgi.framework;version = "1.3.0"   // Java packages needed from 
// external source 

Eclipse SCADA

Eclipse SCADA, another major Eclipse IoT service, delivers a means of connecting various industrial instruments to a shared communication system. It also post-processes data and sends data visualizations to operators. It uses a SCADA system with a communication service, monitoring system, archive, and data visualization.

It aims to be a complete, state-of-the-art open source SCADA system for developing custom solutions. Its supported technologies and tools include shell applications, JDBC, Modbus TCP and RTU, Simatic S7 PLC, OPC, and SNMP.

Internet of Things - Useful Resources

The following resources contain additional information on Internet of Things. Please use them to get more in-depth knowledge on this.

Useful Links on Internet of Things

• Internet of Things Wiki − Wikipedia Reference for Internet of Things.

Useful Books on Internet of Things

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Internet of Things - Liability

The security flaws of IoT and its ability to perform certain tasks open the door to any associated liability. The three main areas of concern are device malfunction, attacks, and data theft. These issues can result in a wide variety of damages.

Device Malfunction

IoT introduces a deeper level of automation which can have control over critical systems, and systems impacting life and property. When these systems fail or malfunction, they can cause substantial damage; for example, if an IoT furnace control system experiences a glitch, it may fail in an unoccupied home and cause frozen pipes and water damage. This forces organizations to create measures against it.

This smart thermostat allows attackers to gain remote access, and breach the rest of the network.

Cyber Attacks

IoT devices expose an entire network and anything directly impacted to the risk of attacks. Though those connections deliver powerful integration and productivity, they also create the perfect opportunity for mayhem like a hacked stove or fire safety sprinkler system. The best measures against this address the most vulnerable points, and provide custom protections such as monitoring and access privileges.

Some of the most effective measures against attacks prove simple −

• Built-in Security − Individuals and organizations should seek hardened devices, meaning those with security integrated in the hardware and firmware.
• Encryption − This must be implemented by the manufacturer and through user systems.
• Risk Analysis − Organizations and individuals must analyze possible threats in designing their systems or choosing them.
• Authorization − Devices, whenever possible, must be subject to privilege policies and access methods.

Bitdefender BOX secures all connected devices in the home.

Data Theft

Data, IoT's strength and weakness, proves irresistible to many. These individuals have a number of reasons for their interest − the value of personal data to marketing/advertising, identity theft, framing individuals for crimes, stalking, and a bizarre sense of satisfaction. Measures used to fight attacks are also effective in managing this threat.

IoT Data Brokers / Cloud Services

ThingWorx

Description:

"The ThingWorx platform provides a complete application design, runtime, and intelligence environment - allowing organizations to rapidly create M2M applications and innovative solutions that unleash the value found at the intersection of people, systems, and intelligent connected Things."

EVRYTHNG

Description:

The EVRYTHNG Engine provides high scale, industrial technology to create and serve millions of Active Digital Identities™ for a company’s products and other objects. These unique online profiles create a persistent, unique digital presence for any physical object on the Web. Think of a Facebook for Things™ where individual objects, just like people on social networks, have their own unique digital profiles that enable communications, apps and services."

Sense

Description:

"Open.Sen.se an open platform for all those who want to imagine, prototype and test new Devices, Installations, Scenarios, Applications for this globally interconnected and immersive world. Designers, developers, tinkerers, students, hobbyists, R&D departments, artists, self quantifiers, dataviz maniacs, whatever your skills are, we tried to make Open.Sen.se easy to use and yet powerful for you. Needless to say Open.Sen.se is free.'

- View a more comprehensive list of IoT Platforms.

Internet of Things Protocols

Description:

"Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a software protocol intended to be used in very simple electronics devices that allows them to communicate interactively over the Internet. It is particularly targeted for small low power sensors, switches, valves and similar components that need to be controlled or supervised remotely, through standard Internet networks.

CoAP is an application layer protocol that is intended for use in resource-constrained internet devices, such as WSN nodes. CoAP is designed to easily translate to HTTP for simplified integration with the web, while also meeting specialized requirements such as multicast support, very low overhead, and simplicity"

Description:

"Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture for distributed systems such as the World Wide Web. REST has emerged as a predominant web API design model. "

Description:

"Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is an open message protocol for M2M communications that enables the transfer of telemetry-style data in the form of messages from pervasive devices, along high latency or constrained networks, to a server or small message broker."

Description:

"The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is an open technology for real-time communication, which powers a wide range of applications including instant messaging, presence, multi-party chat, voice and video calls, collaboration, lightweight middleware, content syndication, and generalized routing of XML data."

Internet of Things Software

Riot OS

Description:

"RIOT OS is an operating system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It is based on a microkernel and designed for energy efficiency, hardware independent development, a high degree of modularity."

•             Support for 6LoWPAN, IPv6, RPL, TCP, and UDP

•             Built for maximum energy-efficiency and low resource requirements: Min RAM (~ 1.5kB) and Min ROM (~ 5kB)

•             Ability to operate on several platforms (Embedded devices and common PCs)

•             Standard programming in C or C++ and can run both 16 and 32-bit platforms

Thingsquare Mist

Description:

"Thingsquare Mist brings resilient wireless mesh networking and true Internet-connectivity to the Internet of Things. The Thingsquare Mist open source firmware is exceptionally lightweight, battle-proven, and works with multiple microcontrollers with a range of radios.

Thingsquare Mist typically runs on hardware with 64-256 kilobytes of flash and 16-32 kilobytes of RAM."

- View more Internet of Things software projects here.

Internet of Things Hardware

Prototyping boards and platforms

From the Arduino to the Raspberry Pi to the new BeagleBone Black, there are a large number of community DIY and prototyping platforms available that are making its possible to create your own Internet of Things project.

You can see a directory of some of these prototyping hardware here.From "Smart Dust" systems that can be embedded (and even ingested) all the way to the satellites driving an Interplanetary Internet system. The range of hardware devices that will drive an Internet of Things is huge and too broad to cover effectively in an overview article.

Wireless SoC (system on chip)

Manufactures like Gainspan, Wiznet, Nordic Semiconductor, TI and others are creating self contained, RF-certified module solutions that have TCP, UDP and IP on chip. These solutions include built-in security features, can reduce certification times and allow companies to add communication to any microcontroller-based (MCU-based) product with little RF expertise.

IoT Backbone

A few key components to an Internet of Things architecture.

IPv4 and IPv6

Description:

"Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet.

Every device on the Internet must be assigned an IP address in order to communicate with other devices. With the ever-increasing number of new devices being connected to the Internet, the need arose for more addresses than IPv4 is able to accommodate. IPv6 uses a 128-bit address, allowing 2128, or approximately 3.4×1038 addresses, or more than 7.9×1028 times as many as IPv4, which uses 32-bit addresses.'

UDP

Description:

"The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is one of the core members of the Internet protocol suite (the set of network protocols used for the Internet). With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol (IP) network without prior communications to set up special transmission channels or data paths."

TCP

Description:

"The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is intended for use as a highly reliable host-to-host protocol between hosts in packet-switched computer communication networks, and in interconnected systems of such networks."

6LoWPAN

Description:"6LoWPAN is an acronym of IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks. The 6LoWPAN group has defined encapsulation and header compression mechanisms that allow IPv6 packets to be sent to and received from over IEEE 802.15.4 based networks."

Internet of Things - Salesforce

The Salesforce IoT Cloud is a platform for storing and processing IoT data. It uses the Thunder engine for scalable, real-time event processing. Its collection of application development components, known as Lightning, powers its applications. It gathers data from devices, websites, applications, customers, and partners to trigger actions for real-time responses.

Salesforce, a CRM leader, decided to enter this space due to the need to remain competitive in the coming era. The IoT cloud adds to Salesforce by expanding its reach, and the depth of its analytics.

Salesforce combined with IoT delivers dramatically improved customer service with tighter integration and responses to real-time events; for example, adjustments in wind turbines could trigger automatic rebooking of delayed/canceled connecting flights before airline passengers land.

Electric Imp

The Electric Imp platform is Salesforce's recommended method for quickly connecting devices to the cloud. You develop applications through the Squirrel language; a high level, OO, lightweight scripting language. Applications consist of two modules: the device module, which runs on the device; and the agent module, which runs in the Electric Imp cloud. The platform ensures secure communication between the modules, and you send devices messages with a simple call −

agent.send("nameOfmessage", data);

Listen for messages on the agent with the following code −

device.on("nameOfmessage", function(data) { 
  
  //Data operations 

});

Beyond these basic tasks, coding for device interaction, monitoring, and response resembles standard web application development, and uses a simple, easy-to-learn syntax.

Scope of Internet of Things

The "Internet of Things" covers a huge scope of industries and applications.

The following Channel Guide will help you:

• Move into understanding of higher level technologies like machine learning and user experience feedback and analytics
• Provide glimpse of different ways to view an IoT technology stack
• Dive into data management and API cloud brokers

• Communication
• Backbone
• Hardware
• Protocols
• Software
• Data Brokers / Cloud Platforms
• Machine Learning