Internet of things reference architectures, security and interoperability: A survey

The term Internet of Things (IoT) is used as an umbrella that covers several topics, related to the application of technological means to monitor, measure and act upon the environment. As a result, it is difficult to determine a univocal architecture to identify as a reference and several scenarios, involving different sensors, smart devices, networks or gateways, can unfold. The data exchanged within and among IoT frameworks are growing exponentially, and the pervasiveness of such systems brings them to come in possession of very sensitive information: as a consequence, Security and Privacy have become a hot topic on the IoT scenery. Furthermore, due to the great variety of technological solutions which are currently available, interoperability issues are bound to arise, especially when no standard API interface, or communication protocol, has been officially adopted. This paper provides a review of the most common architectural solutions available today to shape an IoT system, ranging from already standardized architecture to commercial ones. Elements from such architectures have been compared, analysed and mapped one against the other to determine a stable reference for Security and Interoperability analysis. Current solutions in the Security and API Interoperability domains for IoT have been also analysed. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.