Rethinking ‘Things’ - Fog layer interplay in IoT: A mobile code approach

Abstract

A client-server architecture style is one of the common approaches enabling separation of concerns in distributed systems. In the Internet of Things architecture, this approach exists in different configuration of sensors, actuators, gateways in the Fog layer and servers in the Cloud. This configuration affects the degree of interoperability, scalability and other functional and non-functional system requirements. In this paper, we reflect on best practices in the web and REST style to address IoT challenges; one of the constraints in REST, Code on Demand, is used for IoT to enhance the flexibility and interoperability of resource constrained clients at the perception layer. Scripts written in a domain specific language, DoS-IL, are organized and stored at the Fog layer for sensor and actuators nodes to request and execute the incoming script. A generic application layer protocol and RESTful server are presented along with experimental results.