Thin Servers for the Internet of Things

Abstract

The Internet of Things involves a lot of server/gateway solutions, specifically for home automation. A specific Constrained Application Protocol has been developed by the IETF to provide for machine-to-machine communication in these solutions. However the communication paths defined by these solutions using the protocol have room for improvement and currently subject the server to a lot more load than necessary. In these paths all the sensor and actuator communication travels via the cloud gateway. Better paths exist directly between the sensor and the actuator. The work done involves a solution in which sensors and actuators are bound together while the cloud gateway initiates the interaction and it also involves the concepts of RESTlets which enable actuator to do some form processing on the sensor input hence keeping the interaction of the cloud gateway to a minimum, thereby reducing the load on it and making it thinner.