Evolution and Disruption in Network Processing for the Internet of Things

Abstract

Between prophecies of revolutions and inertiae of legacies, the Internet of Things (IoT) has already become the brand under which light processing units communicate over complex networks. Network processing is caught between demands for computation, raised by the growing complexity of the networks, and limitations imposed by performance of lightweight devices on processing. In this contribution the potential for disruptive changes against the scaling of existing technologies is discussed, specifically three main aspects of the IoT that impact network protocols and their processing: the reversal of the client/server architectures, the scavenging of spectral bands, and the federation of Internet gateways.