An Architectural Vision for a Data-Centric IoT: Rethinking Things, Trust and Clouds

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is producing a tidal wave of data, much of it originating at the network edge, from applications with requirements unmet by the traditional back-end Cloud architecture. To address the disruption caused by the overabundance of data, this paper offers a holistic data-centric architectural vision for the data-centric IoT. It advocates that we rethink our approach to the design and definition of key elements: that we shift our focus from Things to Smart Objects; grow Trust organically; and evolve back-end Clouds toward Edge and Fog clouds, which leverage data-centric networks and enable optimal handling of upstream data flows. Along the way, we wax poetic about several blue-sky topics, assess the status of these elements in the context of related work, and identify known gaps in meeting this vision.