Building IoT ecosystems from mobile clouds at network edge

Abstract

While it is difficult to find a consistent definition of Internet of Things (IoT) in research literature, the intersection of most research says that IoT is about a wide array of devices at network edge, that people and devices should be able to interact seamlessly, and that devices and people should be able to interact with each other across the global network. This chapter points that local interaction of people and devices is covered by the topic of mobile clouds and therefore can benefit from the concept of GroupConnect and the related virtualization of local wireless resource. The wide array of devices is covered in this chapter by a new cloud platform referred to as Local Hardware Awareness Platform (LHAP)—where the main feature of the platform is in the name. LHAP allows for devices to advertise and make their physical function useful to nearby applications. Finally, this chapter discusses the concept of cloudification in which LHAP is implemented as a cloud platform that can host traditional Virtual Machines (VMs) or container-based apps. End-to-end connectivity is discussed as part of the cloudification process where it may not be necessary to assign IP addresses to all devices at network edge, instead relying on delegated networking via smartphones and WiFi Access Points.