On the Deployment of IoT Systems: An Industrial Survey

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) systems are complex and multifaceted, and the design of their architectures needs to consider many aspects at a time. Design decisions concern, for instance, the modeling of software components and their interconnections, as well as where to deploy the components within the available hardware infrastructure in the Edge-Cloud continuum. A relevant and challenging task, in this context, is to identify optimal deployment models due to all the different aspects involved, such as extra-functional requirements of the system, heterogeneity of the hardware resources concerning their processing and storage capabilities, and constraints like legal issues and operational cost limits. To gain insights about the deployment decisions concerning IoT systems in practice, and the factors that influence those decisions, we report about an industrial survey we conducted with 66 IoT architects from 18 countries across the world. Each participant filled in a questionnaire that comprises 15 questions. By analyzing the collected data, we have two main findings: (i) architects rely on the Cloud more than the Edge for deploying the software components of IoT systems, in the majority of the IoT application domains; and (ii) the main factors driving deployment decisions are four: reliability, performance, security, and cost.

A Scalable Approach to Improve Security and Resilience of Smart City IoT Architectures

“…The result of their survey, which included respondents from various backgrounds and IoT application domains, showed a strong preference for cloud over edge deployments for software components. This trend towards cloud-based solutions resonates with the objectives of this work, and the findings in [21] accentuate the potential benefits of cloud-native solutions, particularly in terms of performance, resilience, scalability, security, and deployment and maintenance processes. These factors form the basis for the evaluation and comparison of traditional and cloud-native IoT architectures within this thesis.…”

“…Traditional approaches to deploy IoT in smart cities face substantial constraints, not only in terms of the scalability of the solutions, but also with visibility and monitoring, as they rely on distributed, cross-platform architectures, which are difficult to deploy, manage, and orchestrate [19,20]. To alleviate these issues and ensure that modernized projects are secure and scalable within the contemporary landscape of cloud infrastructures, cloud-oriented designs seem to be most suitable, as they allow for both cost-effective and time-efficient resource administration, due to their rapid microservice-based deployments [21,22].…”

“…In a comprehensive survey [21], Alkhabbas et al sought to understand the factors that influence the decision-making about the deployment among IoT system architects.…”

Low-Code Engineering for the Internet of Things

“…The IoT system components of a typical IoT system can be deployed at any layer namely edge, fog, and cloud. Designing the deployment plan of such a complex and heterogeneous system has to take into consideration several aspects and be aware of different satisfactory requirements [223]. The deployment model connects the software to the actual system nodes in which the software program will be executed.…”

Hierarchical stable election protocol for WSN‐based IoT inhabitant and environmental monitoring applications

“…20 Even though many algorithms exist for routing, a new algorithm is still needed to deal with the challenges of growing thousands of IoT devices. 21 SEP is the conventional protocol to address wireless sensor network energy issues by utilizing two-level heterogeneity nodes. A new CH selection and the subsequent cluster formation occur in every round of SEP and its variant protocols.…”