Internet Research Task Force Gyu Myoung Lee Internet Draft Institut TELECOM Intended status: Informational Jungsoo Park Expires: April 2011 ETRI Ning Kong CNNIC Noel Crespi Institut TELECOM October 18, 2010 The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement draft-lee-iot-problem-statement-00.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This Internet-Draft will expire on April 18, 2011. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 1] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info)in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 2] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Abstract This document explains the concept of the Internet of Things and several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document investigates key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT. Conventions used in this document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 3] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................ 5 2. Concept of IoT .............................................. 5 2.1. Basic concept of the IoT................................ 5 2.2. Classification and characteristics of objects........... 6 2.3. Purpose / applications.................................. 7 3. Features of the IoT ......................................... 8 3.1. Overall aspects......................................... 8 3.2. Applications/services aspects........................... 8 3.3. Networking aspects...................................... 8 3.4. Link/physical layer aspects............................. 8 3.5. Smart/connected objects aspects......................... 8 3.6. Smart environment aspects (home/office/building, etc)... 8 4. General issues .............................................. 8 5. Problems .................................................... 11 5.1. Identifier for objects and services .................... 11 5.2. Object naming .......................................... 11 5.3. Security/privacy/authority ............................. 12 5.4. Presence (of people; of devices) ....................... 13 5.5. Geographic location (self identification of location)... 13 5.6. Discovery/search........................................ 13 5.7. Tracking of mobile object .............................. 13 5.8. Data processing /computing ............................. 13 5.9. Heterogeneous networking interfaces (IP and non-IP, etc) 14 5.10. Global connectivity (IPv6) ............................ 14 5.11. Scalability ........................................... 14 5.12. Universal interoperability ............................ 14 5.13. Autonomics (self-configuring, intelligence for control) 14 5.14. Power/energy storage .................................. 15 5.15. Coordination among many objects ....................... 15 5.16. Web Services .......................................... 15 6. Summary and future work ..................................... 15 7. Security Considerations ..................................... 15 8. IANA Considerations ......................................... 15 9. References .................................................. 16 9.1. Normative References ................................... 16 9.2. Informative References ................................. 16 Appendix I: Case study on typical use cases of the IoT.......... 16 Appendix II: Relationships with existing working groups in IETF. 16 Author's Addresses ............................................. 17 Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 4] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 1. Introduction The Internet of Things (IoT) [1-3] is a novel paradigm that is becoming popular with research and industries. The basic idea is that IoT will connect objects around us (electronic, electrical, non electrical) to provide seamless communication and contextual services provided by them. Development of RFID tags, sensors, actuators, mobile phones make it possible to materialize IoT which interact and co-operate each other to make the service better and accessible anytime, from anywhere. There are so many applications that are possible because of IoT. For individual users, IoT brings useful applications like home automation, security, automated devices monitoring, and management of daily tasks. For professionals, automated applications provide useful contextual information all the time to help on their works and decision making. Industries, with sensors and actuators operations can be rapid, efficient and more economic. Managers who need to keep eye on many things can automate tasks connection digital and physical objects together. Every sectors energy, computing, management, security, transportation are going to be benefitted with this new paradigm. Development of several technologies made it possible to achieve the vision of Internet of things. Identification technology such as RFID allows each object to represent uniquely by having unique identifier. Identity reader can read any time the object allows real time identification and tracking. Wireless sensor technology allows objects to provide real time environmental condition and context. Smart technologies allow objects to become more intelligent which can think and communicate. Nanotechnologies are helping to reduce the size of the chip incorporating more processing power and communication capabilities in a very small chip. This document explains the concept of the Internet of Things and several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document investigates key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT. The main objective of this document is to develop a new architectural framework in order to solve problems. 2. Concept of IoT 2.1. Basic concept of the IoT o Definition of the "IoT" Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 5] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Internet: The original "Internet" is based on the TCP/IP protocol suite but any network based on the TCP/IP protocol suite cannot belong to the Internet because private networks and Telecommunication networks are not part of the Internet even though they are based on the TCP/IP protocol suite. In the viewpoint of IoT, the "Internet" considers the TCP/IP suite and non-TCP/IP suite at the same time. o Definition and scope of "things" In the vision of IoT, "things" are very various such as computers, sensors, people, actuators, refrigerators, TVs, vehicles, mobile phones, clothes, food, medicines, books, etc. These things are classified as three scopes: people, machine (for example, sensor, actuator, etc) and information (for example clothes, food, medicine, books and etc). These "things" should be identified at least by one unique way of identification for the capability of addressing and communicating with each other and verifying their identities. In here, if the "thing" is identified, we call it the "object." o Terminologies o Goals (new architecture/framework) and vision 2.2. Classification and characteristics of objects Many studies are going on regarding IoT which is going to be an advanced network including normal physical objects together with computers and other advanced electronic appliances. Instead of forming ad hoc network, normal objects will be a part of whole network so that they can collaborate, understand real time environmental data and react accordingly in need. Objects can be classified as follows. o Size: small, normal o Mobility: mobile, fixed o Power: without power supply, with power supply Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 6] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 o Connectivity: intermittently connected, continuously connected o Automation: automated, non automated o Physical/logical: physical objects, logical objects o Network protocol: IP enabled objects, non IP objects Objects have the following characteristics. o Ability to sense and/or actuate o Small (or not necessarily) o Limited capability (or not necessarily) o Energy/power limited o Connected to physical world o Intermittent connectivity o Mobile (potentially) o Of interest to people o Managed by devices, not people 2.3. Purpose / applications o Body area network (bio-medical, etc) o Smart Grid o Building networks o Vehicles (inter and intra) o RFID/Asset-tracking o Manufacturing o Environmental sensors Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 7] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 o Revealing/sharing information 3. Features of the IoT 3.1. Overall aspects (Order(s) of magnitude bigger than the Internet, No computers or humans at endpoint, Inherently mobile, disconnected, unattended) 3.2. Applications/services aspects 3.3. Networking aspects 3.4. Link/physical layer aspects 3.5. Smart/connected objects aspects 3.6. Smart environment aspects (home/office/building, etc) 4. General issues o Scalability The IoT has larger overall scope than communications with conventional hosts. There will be small (home environment) or large scale (factory, building) application area. Objects communicate with each other and with people seamlessly. Each constituent might be offering different services. Basic functionalities such as communication, service discovery need to be functioning efficiently in both small and large scale environment. Scalability regarding addressing can be taken as an example. IPv4 address is finishing, object-to-object communication needs huge number of IP addresses in order to uniquely identify each objects. As a scalable solution, IPv6 can be used which can accommodate as many things as required to include in the IoT. o Interoperability Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 8] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 World of physical objects is extremely diverse. They have different communication, information and processing capabilities. Each object would also be subjected to very different conditions such as power energy availability and communication bandwidth requirement. In order to facilitate communication and cooperation common practices and standards are required. Interoperability issue includes device, services heterogeneities. Devices are small, large, with continuously powered, without power supply. Interoperability solution should be maintained to provide seamless interaction among them. Service description, publishing, and discovery mechanisms should be interoperable otherwise the IoT will be converted into islands of heterogeneous object network. o Discovery In dynamic environment of ubiquitous networking, suitable services for objects must be automatically identified. As users want to know product information and their availability all the time, it requires appropriate semantic means of describing their functionality. o Data volumes Depending on application and use cases there is variance in data volume. In a scenario where there is brief collaboration among objects data volume will be less. However, in case where there are large number of objects and interact among very frequently there are large volume of data. How to handle big volume of data is one of the important challenges of ubiquitous networking. Volume can be considered either from device or as a whole network perspective. Each object has augmented memory, storage and processing capability. If there are a large number of peer objects communicating with each other, object runs out of processing, memory and storage. From network perspective it is also difficult to handle bulk amount of data if objects produce huge bytes of data regularly. Solution can be periodic communication between objects or some data compression and optimization techniques. o Power supply Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 9] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Scope of object is broad in the IoT. It ranges from small to large. Moreover, things move around and difficult to connect to power supply all the time. So they need to operate with self-sufficient energy source. Passive RFID does not contain power supply, which requires reader in order to get information from it. Not all objects can be connected to continuous power supply also, providing battery for each small object may not be feasible. Therefore, energy efficient communication mechanisms are essential. o Fault-tolerance The IoT consists of objects have less power. They are more dynamic and mobile compare to current state. However, users rely and believe that network will function properly. To maintain robust and trust worthy dynamic ubiquitous networking requires redundancy in several levels and ability to automatically adapt to changed conditions depending on the required quality of service. o Security and personal privacy Users are fighting with security and privacy issue of current Internet in large extent. When it will be broaden in to ubiquitous networking, there is even more threat of security and personal privacy. Confidentiality, authenticity and trustworthiness of communication partners need to be maintained. Users may want to give things limited service access not allowing them to communicate in uncontrolled manner. o Device adaptation Initially started with retail and logistic application, the IoT is covering very general applications scenario integrating things to the network. It allows objects to collaborate each other and with person. There are heterogeneous devices, application scenarios, data format, and communication network. Each connected objects should be able to adapt the situation where it is now. When a person with smart phone enters home, it should adapt communication mechanism, addressing and localized environment. When it reaches in office environment it should adapt with new situation where the mechanisms available in home can be different. Adaption in many senses should be maintained. o Intelligence Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 10] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 The smart objects should be able to intelligently co-operate with the environment in which it will be introduced. Sensing current environment, acting intelligently according to situation is required in order to realize true object-to-object communication. The IoT makes possible for virtually any object around us to exchange information and work in synergy to increase quality of our life. There are smart clothes which will interact intelligently with climate control of car and home to select the most suitable temperature and humidity for the person. Smart book interacts with entertainment devices such as TV in order to elaborate the topic we are reading. Most of the devices act according to their predetermined set of actions or they will collaborate with each other based on current context and act accordingly. 5. Problems 5.1. Identifier for objects and services There are various kinds of identifier with different identification codes according to objects and their services. Current identification schemes for objects are also different from their purposes. Solution: o Identification (new naming space, globally unique ID) With the huge evolved communication objects, the hierarchical identification schemes are required. The aggregation feature of IPv6 address is one of example. According to the classification of Things, the different identification schemes are required. That is, the information such as books, medicine and clothes may not require the global identification because revocation lists are required. It means some objects will be destroyed. 5.2. Object naming Current Internet just identifies the specific server which contents are stored. As the end points of current Internet are hosts, individual content in a server cannot be identified in the network. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 11] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Solution: o Naming/addressing for fixed/mobile objects Object naming services The name service of Internet such as DNS (Domain Name System) [RFC1034] has already been one of the most important infrastructures of the Internet nowadays. For example, DNS is an indispensable system of the Internet used for translating the "human-friendly" host names of computers on a TCP/IP network into their corresponding "machine- friendly" IP addresses. In general, DNS also stores other types of information, such as the list of mail servers that accept email for a given Internet domain. By providing a worldwide, distributed name service, DNS is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet. Similarly, object name service will also be one of essential and key elements in the IoT, which can be used for translating the "thing- friendly" names of object which maybe belong to heterogeneous name spaces (e.g. EPC, uCode, and any other self-defined code) on different networks (e.g. TCP/IP network, constrained network) into their corresponding "machine-friendly" addresses or other related information of another TCP/IP or constrained network. The object of IoT based on a TCP/IP or constrained network can easily communicate with other object on the same or any other network with the name of the object by object name service, without considering whether the address of the targeted object has been changed or not. To fulfill the aforementioned objective, object naming service based on the IoT needs to be researched. The compatibility of heterogeneous name spaces and the efficiency for the constrained network of this kind of service are supposed to be the most important issues to be studied in future. 5.3. Security/privacy/authority The loss of security and privacy in communications and services, with personal data is becoming available and unwanted communication becoming rampant. The overall problem is further aggravated by the diversification of the Internet with new types of devices and heterogeneous networks. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 12] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 The user is confronted with a wide range of methods and devices with which to access the digital world, and it can no longer be assumed that a single, independent access per device will suffice, nor that the user will actually own all these devices. Solution: o ID-management for things (security, authentication, privacy) Basically each object should not be able to authenticate during the short time because the hundreds of objects may request the approval at the same time. Therefore, group authentication and authorization methods are required. 5.4. Presence (of people; of devices) 5.5. Geographic location (self identification of location) o awareness of location 5.6. Discovery/search 5.7. Tracking of mobile object Solution: o TBD To support the routing and mobility protocols, the IoT networks have structural characteristics. That is, the mobility support models are required. Some objects move independently. Others will move as the one of group. Therefore, according the moving feature, the different tracking methods are required. 5.8. Data processing /computing For supporting various applications in the IoT environment, information should be able to transfer among objects operating under varied perspectives without humans. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 13] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Solutions o Information model (data store, retrieval, transfer, etc) According the Information model, the functionality of data processing should be distinguished. o Policy/preferences 5.9. Heterogeneous networking interfaces (IP and non-IP, etc) o Interworking model with proxy (gateway) Each gateway should support the multiple interfaces, which are evolved in different heterogeneous network. 5.10. Global connectivity (IPv6) Each object should support the end-to-end communications. And also outside-initiated services may be supported into the inner network. 5.11. Scalability In IETF LISP, Shim6 and Other WG, ID/LOC separation methods have been developing. For more scalable and robust network, ID/LOC separation features are required. 5.12. Universal interoperability 5.13. Autonomics (self-configuring, intelligence for control) o Remote control and management/maintenance of objects Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 14] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 IPv6 auto-configuration and multi-homing features are useful for the autonomics. The scope-based IPv6 addressing features are easily applied for self-configuration such as smart building and smart grid. 5.14. Power/energy storage 5.15. Coordination among many objects Like the Full-function device (FFD) and Reduced Function Devices (RFD) in sensor network, the objects of IoT should be classified in viewpoint of functionalities. 5.16. Web Services Each object may be identified through the web services. It means that the object should be identified by the URL/URL. 6. Summary and future work This document has explained the concept of the Internet of Things and several characteristics of objects. In addition, this document has investigated key technical issues and specifies problems for the IoT. For future work, we need to find possible solutions for each problem. It would be a good starting point to develop a new architectural framework in order to solve problems. 7. Security Considerations TBD 8. IANA Considerations This document has no actions for IANA. Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 15] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 9. References 9.1. Normative References TBD 9.2. Informative References [1] ITU-T Internet Reports, "Internet of Things," November 2005. [2] Zouganeli E., Svinnset, I.E, "Connected objects and the Internet of things-a paradigm shift," Photonics in Switching 2009, September 2009. [3] Harald Sundmaeker, Patrick Guilemin, Peter Friess, Sylvie Woelffle, "Vision and challenges for realizing the Internet of Things," March 2010. [4] Luigi Atzori, Antonio Iera, Giacomo Morabito, "The Internet of Things: A survey," Computer Networks, Volume 54, Issue 15, pp.2787-2805, October 2010. Appendix I: Case study on typical use cases of the IoT TBD Appendix II: Relationships with existing working groups in IETF o 6LoWPAN (IPv6 header compression) o ROLL (IPv6 routing for low power/lossy networks) o Core (Constrained RESTful Environments, former 6LoWApp (Low power applications) BoF) o RRG (Routing research group) o HIPRG (Host identity protocol research group) Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 16] The Internet of Things - Concept and Problem Statement April 2011 Author's Addresses Gyu Myoung Lee Institut TELECOM, TELECOM SudParis 9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011, Evry, France Phone: +33 (0)1 60 76 41 19 Email: gm.lee@it-sudparis.eu Jungsoo Park ETRI/SRC 161 Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-700, Korea Phone: +82 42 860 6514 Email: fnumber@gmail.com Ning Kong CNNIC 4 South 4th Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing, 100190, China. Phone: +86 10 5881 3147 Email: nkong@cnnic.cn Noel Crespi Institut TELECOM, TELECOM SudParis 9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011, Evry, France Phone: +33 (0)1 60 76 46 23 Email: noel.crespi@it-sudparis.eu Lee, et al. Expires April 18, 2011 [Page 17]