An Architectural Vision For A Data-Centric Iot: Rethinking Things, Trust And Clouds

The Internet of Things (IoT) is producing a tidal wave of data, much of it originating at the network edge, from applications with requirements unmet by the traditional back end Cloud architecture. To address the disruption caused by the overabundance of data, this paper offers a holistic data-centric architectural vision for the data-centric IoT. It advocates that we rethink our approach to the design and definition of key elements: that we shift our focus from Things to Smart Objects; grow Trust organically; and evolve back-end Clouds toward Edge and Fog clouds, which leverage data-centric networks and enable optimal handling of upstream data flows. Along the way, we wax poetic about several blue-sky topics, assess the status of these elements in the context of related work, and identify known gaps in meeting this vision.