LISA 2.0: lightweight internet of things service bus architecture using node centric networking

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) technologies are advancing rapidly and a wide range of physical networking alternatives, communication standards and platforms are introduced. However, due to differences in system requirements and resource constraints in devices, there exist variations in these technologies, standards, and platforms. Consequently, application silos are formed. In contrast to the freedom of choice attained by a range of options, the heterogeneity of the technologies is a critical interoperability challenge faced by IoT systems. Moreover, IoT is also limited to address new requirements that arise due to the nature of the majority of smart devices. These requirements, such as mobility and intermittent availability, are hardly satisfied by the current IoT technologies following the end-to-end model inherited from the Internet. This paper introduces a lightweight, distributed, and embedded service bus called LISA which follows a Node Centric Networking architecture. LISA is designed to provide interoperability for resource-constrained devices in IoT. It also enables a natural way of embracing the new IoT requirements, such as mobility and intermittent availability, through node centric networking. LISA provides a simple application programming interface for developers, hiding the variations in platform, protocol or physical network, thus facilitating interoperability in IoT systems. LISA is inspired by network on terminal architecture (NoTA), a service centric open architecture originated by Nokia Research Center. Our extensive experimental results show the efficiency and scalability of LISA in providing a lightweight interoperability for IoT systems.