Large-Scale Indexing, Discovery, and Ranking for the Internet of Things (IoT)

Network-enabled sensing and actuation devices are key enablers to connect real-world objects to the cyber world. The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of the network-enabled devices and communication technologies that allow connectivity and integration of physical objects (Things) into the digital world (Internet). Enormous amounts of dynamic IoT data are collected from Internet-connected devices. IoT data are usually multi-variant streams that are heterogeneous, sporadic, multi-modal, and spatio-temporal. IoT data can be disseminated with different granularities and have diverse structures, types, and qualities. Dealing with the data deluge from heterogeneous IoT resources and services imposes new challenges on indexing, discovery, and ranking mechanisms that will allow building applications that require on-line access and retrieval of ad-hoc IoT data. However, the existing IoT data indexing and discovery approaches are complex or centralised, which hinders their scalability. The primary objective of this article is to provide a holistic overview of the state-of-the-art on indexing, discovery, and ranking of IoT data. The article aims to pave the way for researchers to design, develop, implement, and evaluate techniques and approaches for on-line large-scale distributed IoT applications and services.