TECHNICAL TRADE-OFFS OF IOT PLATFORMS Mike Anderson

Transcription

1 TECHNICAL TRADE-OFFS OF IOT PLATFORMS Mike Anderson Chief Scientist The PTR Group, Inc.

2 Who is The PTR Group? The PTR Group was founded in 2000 We are involved in multiple areas of work: Robotics (NASA space arm) Flight software (over 35 satellites on orbit) Offensive and defensive cyber operations I ll leave this to your imagination Embedded software ports to RTOS/Linux/bare metal IoT systems architecture and deployment OIOT-SD

3 Who am I? Over 39 years in the embedded space Developed part of VxWorks Instructor for Linux/Android internals Mentor for FRC #116 FIRST Robotics Team Frequent speaker at: Embedded Linux Conference Embedded Systems Conference CIA Emerging Technology Conference And more OIOT-SD

4 What We ll Talk About What, exactly is a platform? The architectures The big players Differentiating the IoT and IIoT Where is the money? Summary OIOI-SD

5 What is the Internet of Things? A thing is any device that will have connectivity to a network Advances in power management, wireless communications and CPU architectures enables the embedding of intelligence into devices that were previously dumb The data that is produced from the things needs to go someplace for use This could be used locally -- e.g., a thermostat Could be collected at the border gateway and preprocessed to be forwarded to the servers The fog model Or, sent directly to the servers The cloud model The cloud systems provide command and control and data analytics

6 The Core of the IoT At its core, the IoT is simply a way of getting access to sensor data and potentially controlling device(s) based on that data The number and type of sensors and their connectivity are differentiating factors What you do with the data is also a factor Personal consumption like a fitness band Machine to human Monitoring and control ala telemetry/scada Machine to machine Estimates are for $3+ trillion in sales by 2020 Source: lbl.gov OIOI-SD

7 What is a Platform? Well, it depends on who you talk to A piece of hardware with sensors An operating system targeted at sensor technologies A communications protocol/paradigm An end-to-end system that connects sensors to the cloud and provides for data analytics And, at some level, it s all of these things It depends on your focus OIOI-SD

8 Consumer IoT Today, consumer uses of IoT devices break out into two primary uses Fitness-related devices Wearables, exercise equipment, etc. Home monitoring a.k.a, smart home Thermostats, smoke detectors, cameras, etc. The fitness market is relatively new Often, battery-powered sensors Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi or USB connectivity Dominated by proprietary solutions Examples include products from Garmin, Fitbit, Runtastic and more Source: Garmin.com OIOI-SD

9 Consumer IoT #2 The smart home segment used to be known as home automation The home automation term was a non-starter and the market was flat Now, there are a number of players in the space Thread Group Apple HomeKit ZigBee Alliance Z-Wave Alliance IoTivity AllSeen There are several dozen component Source: nest.com manufacturers who are participating in one or more of these ecosystems Interoperability is the key to success OIOI-SD

10 Edge, Middle and Cloud We can think of the IoT as being comprised of devices on the edge, middle box and cloud portions of the ecosystem Edge devices are where the sensors and actuators are found Often, battery operated with low-power networks Consumer edge devices may have wall power Source: eurotech.com

11 Edge, Middle and Cloud #2 The middle boxes are better known as border routers/gateways Translate from the low-power network of edge devices to standard Internet protocols like IPv4/IPv6 May provide data pre-processing The cloud portion provides: Connectivity to external controllers (smartphones, tablets, etc.) Data aggregation and analytics Both connectivity and data services Source: fortune.com

12 Edge Devices Often uses small microcontrollers such as the Atmel AVR, ARM Cortex M, MicroChip PIC32, etc. type of processors 8/16/32-bit processors No MMU Legacy IIoT edge devices may be wired using older technologies like RS-232/RS-485/RS-170 Industrial Internet of Things The power for the device may be collocated in cable Some edge devices are expected to run from battery for years at a time Wireless connectivity via BLE, NFC, IEEE IPv4/IPv6/6LoWPAN or proprietary stacks such as ZigBee or Z-Wave

13 Edge Devices #2 Specifications vary, but generally: RAM < 512 KBs Flash < 1-2 MBs CPU speed < 300 MHz Sensors may be built into the SoC Software may be bare metal or running on small RTOS Companies like Wind River/Intel, Micrium, Green Hills, Express Logic Open source like FreeRTOS, Contiki C/C++ is the dominant language in this segment Source: semiwiki.com

14 Border Routers The middle boxes are gateways between the edge and the Internet Take in low-power wireless on one side and spit out IP via Wi-Fi or Ethernet These devices run an MMU-based operating system Linux, Tizen, Android, ios, Windows Source: bradcampbell.com May take the form of Apple TV, tablet, or other GUI-ful device or even sensors like the Nest thermostat Provides local command and control functions as well as system monitoring Your system can have multiple border routers for redundancy Java, JavaScript, Python, C/C++ are commonly found here

15 The Cloud Server-based platforms with virtually no limitations E.g., Multi-core x86 or ARM, always-on power May provide command and control of downstream devices E.g., hand-held device interface Focused on data aggregation and data analytics Potentially, petabytes of storage with more processing horsepower than you can shake a stick at The power behind Apple s Siri and many other intelligent agents Web-friendly languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, etc. Frameworks like Hadoop Source: howtoshakeastick.com

16 BTW, how big is a Petabyte? By comparison, assume that: Byte of data (2 0 ): one grain of rice Kilobyte (2 10 ): cup of rice Megabyte (2 20 ): 8 bags of rice Gigabyte (2 30 ): 3 container trucks Terabyte (2 40 ): 2 container ships Petabyte (2 50 ): covers Manhattan Exabyte (2 60 ): covers the UK (3x) Zettabyte (2 70 ): fills the Pacific ocean Source: arstechnica.com

17 Message Protocol Alphabet Soup There are a number of different messaging protocols vying for dominance MQTT Message Queue Telemetry Transport Simple hub and spoke approach to messaging Can sit on TCP for message reliability Focus is on telemetry gathering XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol Used by Facebook and Jabber messaging applications Uses XML format over HTTP or TCP Communications rates are measured on human scales Source: microbiologynetwork.com OIOI-SD

18 Message Protocols #2 DDS Data Distribution Service Publish/subscribe M2M middleware focused on device-to-device messaging Object Management Group standard Security and interoperability of a wide variety of devices and services REST Representational State Transfer Uses HTTP verbs (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE, etc.) for message transfer and storage CoAP Constrained Application Protocol Simpler version of HTTP sitting on UDP targeting memory-constrained devices Proprietary protocols Consumer devices frequently implement these OIOI-SD

19 Dimensions of Compatibility Many of the devices in the IoT rely on wireless connectivity Wi-Fi is considered too power hungry for battery-operated devices However, it s easy to work with if there s always power Often used in the border routers Bluetooth Low-Energy (Bluetooth Smart), NFC, cellular and IEEE for the edge devices IEEE layer 3+ varies from vendor to vendor Data exchange includes MQTT, XMPP, CoAP, REST, DDS and proprietary protocols OIOI-SD

20 The Platforms - Apple HomeKit Uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC Products have finally started to become available Broad selection of locks, thermostats, cameras, etc. Compatible with ios 8+ devices Controlling devices/border routers are iphone, ipad, Apple TV End-to-end encryption for security Supports triggers based on time or geo-location Proprietary silicon required for each edge device No clear story for access to the cloud as of yet Source: apple.com OIOI-SD

21 Apple HomeKit #2 There is no Apple HomeKit App at this point Source: apple.com Apple is relying on manufacturer s apps Once associated, can be commanded by voice and compatible with Siri Devices can communicate with each other without human intervention E.g., allows the lights to coordinate with the blinds OIOI-SD

22 Platforms - IoTivity Open-source project sponsored by Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) and hosted by the Linux Foundation Supports the typical wireless interconnects Supports messaging/coap, MQTT and RESTful APIs at this time JSON database representation Still officially pre-release software Support Linux, Tizen, Android, Arduino (Mega 2560 and Due) Security via encryption and supports certificates Service discovery via mdns, upnp Certification process for devices Source: IoTivity.org OIOI-SD

23 IoTivity #2 Various membership levels $350K/yr Seat on the BoD $50k/yr $2k/yr Non-profit/educational Gold $1K one time All membership levels are eligible to seek OCF and UPnP certification of products and/or services OCF has several cooperative partnerships with other ecosystems Source: openconnectivity.org OIOI-SD

24 Platforms AllSeen (AllJoyn) Developed by the AllSeen Alliance Over 200 companies including Microsoft, Qualcomm, Cisco, Panasonic and Sony Open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation with open-source governance Uses D-Bus message bus for discovery Support for Android, ios, Windows, Linux via Gateway Agent API Support included for edge devices Certification process with Designed for AllSeen logo program Source: ETCentric.org OIOI-SD

25 AllSeen #2 End-to-end encryption, X.509 certificates and other security features built in Supports plug-in protocol converters and supports REST, XMPP, MQTT and TR-069 Supports BLE, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, etc. Software available for download Complete stacks available for various silicon Showcase of products at: OIOI-SD

26 The Thread Group The Thread Group was formed in 2014 as a 501(c) (6) non-profit corporation Independent, vendor neutral Open to all (who can afford to join ) Memberships levels: Affiliate ($2.5k/yr) Contributor ($15K/yr) Sponsor ($100K/yr) Source: threadgroup.org Over 200 members The Thread Group manages the delivery of enabling solutions Specifications, certification programs, website, trademarks, copyrights, logos/seals Essentially, they are an industry trade group to promote and protect Thread s IP OIOI-SD

27 The Thread Standard Built on existing IEEE standard Uses 6LoWPAN for L3+ [RFC6282] UDP traffic over modified IPv6 Easily to gateway to the cloud or smartphones Supports 250+ products per network Just a firmware upgrade to existing radios Source: threadgroup.org Works in the 2.4 GHz ISM band world-wide Security using Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) [RFC6347] Provides integrity, authentication and confidentiality OIOI-SD

28 Other IoT Projects/Platforms Kaa Open-source platform supports Linux, Android, Windows, ios ThingSpeak Open-source API using XML, JSON, REST protocols Eclipse Foundation Kura is a Java/OSGi-based API in conjunction with Apache Camel Tied with Eurotech Corp s Everywhere Cloud infrastructure There is no shortage of other IoT projects The problem is to find the one(s) that fit your need OIOI-SD

29 Industrial IoT (IIoT) In spite of all of the hype about the consumer IoT, many believe that the IIoT is where the money will be made Most consumers really don t care about PaaS solutions Major players are sinking lots of money to try to capture this portion of the market E.g., building monitoring, process-control sensors, manufacturing plant monitoring, SCADA, etc. Secondary protocols like MODBUS and BACNET are often required A single building might have as many as 80,000 sensors Platforms must have a story for entire ecosystem Many services are sold as PaaS OIOI-SD

30 Functionality of IIoT Platforms OIOI-SD

31 IIoT Platform - ThingWorx PaaS with support from the border gateways to the cloud No apparent approach for the small, edge devices Source: thingworx.com Focus is on industrial and medical system Provides data storage and data analytics Security using encryption RAD platform for rapid deployment of applications to Android, ios, etc. Large partner ecosystem Supports MQTT, DDS, REST, and most other open protocols OIOI-SD

32 IIoT Platform IBM s Bluemix IBM s entry allows you to use either an API or a service from a selection of third parties MQTT, RESTful and other APIs are supported Lego-block approach for services, storage and data analytics Access to Watson-based analytics as well Their IoT platform has a free version with support of up to 20 devices Higher-tiers scale to 15K devices, 100 MB of data traffic and 1 GB of storage Per device charge after first 15K devices Source: IBM.com OIOI-SD

33 IIoT Platform -- PubNub PubNub is a global Data Stream Network (DSN) Secure, real-time communications API for IoT, mobile and web apps Scales to hundreds of millions of devices with.25 second worldwide latency and over 70 SDKs Free plan includes 1 data center, 100 devices, 1M messages with technical support 1 data center, 1000 devices, 150M messages ~$999/month Teamed with IBM s Bluemix, among others OIOI-SD

34 IIoT Platform -- Verizon New service called ThingSpace Just getting started Collection of APIs for: Connectivity management Device Messaging Verizon Cloud access Trying to leverage all things LTE New LTE radio modes that target low data rate devices Number of extant devkit solutions including BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi Source: verizon.com OIOI-SD

35 IIoT Platform - Xively Formerly Pachube, Cosm A division of LogMeIn Source: xively.com PaaS vendor for industrial applications Provides libraries and SDKs to integrate into their platform Uses a message broker and REST APIs Integration into CRM, ERP and both operational and investigative analytics They sell storage and services as well OIOI-SD

36 IIoT Platform Etherios Formerly Device Cloud Subsidiary of Digi, Inc. Focus is on fleet management, heavy Source: etherios.com machinery, medical devices, manufacturing, etc. Scalable cloud management services with front-office system integration Sells platform and services Integration with mobile, CRM, social networking for machines OIOI-SD

37 IIoT Platform - ThingSquare ThingSquare Originally a Kickstarter project Focused initially on the edge devices Integrating back-end servers now Source: thingsquare.com Total scope of services is still up in the air OIOI-SD

38 Summary The IoT/IIoT has no shortage of offerings in the way of platforms Consumer acceptance is expected to be good as long as things just work Industrial acceptance requires deep integration from the sensor node all the way to data analytics and CRM Standards such as MQTT, DDS, REST, XMPP provide some hope for inter-operability Wireless standards such as BLE, Wi-Fi and IEEE help deal with physical connectivity Open-source focus of many projects is to inspire cooperation Closed-source implementations will likely interoperate more smoothly But, with vendor lock in OIOI-SD