A Taxonomy of Industrial IoT Platforms’ Architectural Features

Abstract

In the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the concept of digital platforms has received significant attention. Although IIoT platforms revolve around similar business objectives, they address a variety of use cases and, thus, differ considerably in their architectural setup. While research has already investigated IIoT platforms from a business or design perspective, little is known about their underlying technology stack and its implications. To unveil different IIoT platform configurations and better understand their architectural design, we systematically develop and validate a taxonomy of IIoT platforms' architectural features based on related literature, real-world cases, and expert interviews. On this foundation, we identify and discuss four IIoT platform archetypes. Our findings contribute to the descriptive knowledge in this ambiguous research field, while also elucidating the interplay of IIoT platforms' architectural setup and their purpose. From a managerial viewpoint, our results may guide practitioners in comparing and selecting a suitable IIoT platform.

Message Scheduling in Blockchain Based IoT Environment With Additional Fog Broker Layer

“…The fog layer exists at the network's access level to alleviate storage load from a data center and respond to requests with low late. The industry is currently leveraging the three-layer IoT architecture [5]: The device layer contains sensors, actuators, and smart devices; layer two is the fog layer, which provides a quick reaction to critical applications and is made up of devices such as smart gateways, routers, and dedicated fog computing devices; and layer three is data center, which is made up of fog devices connected to cloud gateways. Implementation of a fog layer into cloud infrastructure is expected to decrease latency [6] however, a lack of trust may persist as a challenge to the IoT ecosystem.…”