ESTABLISHING THE NORM

Transcription

1 ESTABLISHING THE NORM An Introduction to IoT Standards MARCH 2017 Produced by

2 Contents Summary... 3 Introduction to Issues Driving the Standards Discussion... 4 Interoperability... 4 Security Emergence of Ecosystems... 5 Market Expansion... 6 Emergence of Scale... 6 Trends Shaping IoT Standards Discussions Today... 6 Distribution Arrangements... 7 Global Organizations Leading the Standards Discussion... 7 Organizations Involved in Developing Standards... 7 The Role of U.K. based Organizations in Setting IoT Standards..8 2 ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS

3 Summary Standards have obvious benefits related to cost savings, interoperability, and greater predictability of operating characteristics, which leads to aggregated user demand and viable markets for manufacturers, and subsequently easier replacement of components. A challenge with IoT is that industries and markets are developing quickly creating a complex environment. Many different groups are working at producing standards for their part of the ecosystem, but no-one really controls overall development and direction. Digital Catapult aims to be at the centre of discussions around standards in the UK, working to ensure that all parties involved understand the issues at hand, that they have access to the most current information, and that they communicate with the appropriate parties in order to make informed decisions, resulting in the most productive outcomes. In this report, the Digital Catapult provides a view into the types of groups working to develop IoT related standards, and how developers and users should respond. ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS 3

4 Introduction to Issues Driving the Standards Discussion The growth and innovation taking place in all areas related to the Internet of Things (IoT) is explosive. New technologies and use cases are being developed and brought to market at a rapid pace, and interest in the solutions is high among developers, equipment manufacturers, service providers, as well as businesses and consumers. All parties are eager to reap the potential efficiency and productivity enhancing benefits that IoT promises to deliver. However, to do so requires a significant investment a well thought out roadmap and a complex implementation strategy. A thorough understanding of the issues facing the IoT landscape, particularly in the area of standards, is an important first step in evaluating the market and determining an IoT adoption path. ETSI, a European standards development body, has produced a comprehensive analysis of both the present IoT standards as well as an analysis of what is still needed for an interoperable, interworkable European Internet of Things which can be viewed by clicking this link. Interoperability The technologies involved in creating an IoT-based solution can be vast, and often include items related to devices, networking, the data layer, development platforms, applications, services and solutions, as well as other components. The Digital Catapult has produced a useful description or taxonomy of the elements involved which can be viewed by clicking this link. In many cases, an end to end solution that works securely for a specific company or application can be self-contained it doesn t need to accept or send data to or from outside systems. However, this is becoming increasingly rare, which is amongst the reasons why standards are becoming more relevant. THE TECHNOLOGIES INVOLVED IN CREATING AN IOT-BASED SOLUTION CAN BE VAST, AND OFTEN INCLUDE ITEMS RELATED TO DEVICES, NETWORKING, THE DATA LAYER, DEVELOPMENT PLATFORMS, APPLICATIONS, SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS AS WELL AS OTHER COMPONENTS. ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS 4

5 many technologies and practices individuals can use to reduce their digital footprint, but standards associated with the collection, storage, and use of personal data remains a contentious subject whose resolution will depend on a social and political consensus rather than technological issues. Emergence of Ecosystems Security The development and increasingly wide-spread use of packet-switched networking using the Internet Protocol has changed the vulnerability profile of networks and connected devices. Increasingly problematic is the effect of packet loss and delay on application performance, but so too is the ease with which bad actors can interfere with the network traffic. While those responsible for critical national infrastructure, such as the electricity and transport grids, have generally been aware of the problems, the use of IoT devices such as webcams and video recorders to mount DDoS attacks on the DYN DNS server, which crashed the websites for Twitter, Netflix, Amazon and other key internet destinations, raised awareness for the need to secure all IoT devices connected to the internet. Security concerns are driving the development of standards, for example to identify and authenticate both IoT devices and their message contents, and to find ways to prevent hackers from taking them over for nefarious purposes. At the same time, there is growing concern in some quarters about the ability of governments, private sector companies and nefarious actors to collect, store, profile and unfairly influence individuals options and decisions. The IoT will vastly expand the scope of detail, location and frequency of what is monitored. All too often the things that are monitored will be closely or even uniquely associated with individuals. There are Companies that develop proprietary products that become de facto or persuade standards bodies to accept their solutions as de jure standards obviously have a commercial incentive to do so. While this has worked to an extent for Apple and Google in the market for mobile phone operating systems, the IoT space is far more fragmented, and no company has to date achieved the kind of market dominance that ios and Android enjoy, despite their different approaches to the market. This is because the value chain is longer, and any one company cannot truly deliver an end to end solution. As a result, IoT standards development is largely the work of consortia, usually from interested parties in the industry, and increasingly with the involvement of significant user groups or companies, resulting in ecosystems formed around the base technology. For example, at the level of access to low power wide area (LPWA) networks, some firms, such as Sigfox and Ingenu are hoping to attract developers and customers by making their networks widely available. Others, such as Semtech, have formed their own consortia, like the LoRa Alliance, which encourages the use of their group s particular solutions and services in competition to Sigfox and Ingenu. Others, including mobile network operator Vodafone, have persuaded the LTE standards making body, the 3GPP, to include NB-IoT in its standards. Chip and modem makers are now adding support for NB-IoT to their products, which will eventually reach the market as part of the devices that provide measurements and communicate them to another system. SECURITY CONCERNS ARE DRIVING THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS, FOR EXAMPLE TO IDENTIFY AND AUTHENTICATE BOTH IOT DEVICES AND THEIR MESSAGE CONTENTS, AND TO FIND WAYS TO PREVENT HACKERS FROM TAKING THEM OVER FOR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES 5 ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS

6 Trends Shaping IoT Standards Discussions Today Market Expansion As the potential customer base for IoT solutions expands, the need for standards that apply to horizontal solutions working across vendors and industries is becoming more apparent and desirable. Until recently, most customers simply wanted a system that worked for them, end to end. Some industries or even single companies were large enough to create an attractive market all by themselves, such as the motor vehicle industry. As a result, there are currently many proprietary systems in place, some of which have a level of market share that equates to an industry standard. For example, although only two years old, Amazon s Alexa voice-activated digital personal assistant is quickly being adopted by automakers to interact with their vehicles, and by smart home device makers as the way to operate the devices. The key to Alexa s success could be that it is a platform on which others can build applications or give new skills that extend Alexa s functionality. This has been enhanced by Amazon s success in getting its Alexa-based Echo smart loudspeaker into the market. Together they have created an attractive environment for developers. This development of platforms as de facto IoT standards is mirrored in other parts of the market. Cisco Jasper s application enablement platform has been widely adopted by telcos as the way to manage device lifecycles, while GE s Predix is shaping up as a significant platform for industrial and manufacturing IoT applications. As technology drives down prices and brings IoT within financial reach of more and more firms and individuals, standards are becoming more important. Horizontal standards are being created to address common issues such as security, the context in which data is created, how to implement (bind) data in messages. The leading organization in this area is onem2m, which includes eight global standards-making bodies as members, as well as more than 200 industry members. Its recommendations are widely followed and implemented, and allow systems that address different IoT issues to interoperate, ensuring a global market for developers that follow its rules. In the UK, onem2m standards are at the heart of the Smart Routing Project, Birmingham s novel multi-modal device-centric public transport routing and monitoring system that will use advance analytics and data caching to offer travel information, even without network connectivity. This builds on the onetransport project piloted by Buckinghamshire County Council as a response to Innovate UK s Integrated Transport Initiative. Emergence of Scale In some areas, the sheer volume of adoption of certain technologies is creating de facto standards. As noted above, some industries and companies by themselves are large enough to create their own standards. One such example is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which was formed by banks to replace the Telex as a medium to confirm financial transactions between members. Through SWIFT, banks, custodians, investment institutions, central banks, market infrastructures and corporate clients connect with one another using structured electronic messages to perform common business processes, such as making payments or settling trades. Something similar for IoT applications, even if it was unique to particular use cases, would speed up adoption rates and lower costs. Alternatively, a piece of technology can become so popular that it becomes a de facto standard; Windows is an obvious example. The IoT market, or rather the sectors adopting IoT, mostly have not yet developed the scale to create de facto standards. However, some are emerging. These include MQTT for messaging, LoRa and NB- IoT for LPWA wireless communications, and several Industrial Ethernet protocols such as EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, POWERLINK, SERCOS III, CC-Link IE, and Modbus/TCP that provide more deterministic performance in harsh environments. ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS 6

7 Organizations Involved in Developing Standards Distribution Arrangements An effective distribution system is key to having a product accepted as a de facto standard. Being active in one or more industry standards-making bodies, such as onem2m or the LoRa Alliance, can be a quick way for developers to get in touch with customers who might buy their products and distributors who might take them on. Telcos addressing the IoT space are developing ecosystems of business partners, which shortens their route to market. This strategy costs very little and allows providers to make their products available via the telco s public cloud, or through Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which are often connected to the telco s network or cloud. This offers almost instant global product availability, which is essential for both creating and delivering standard products, but it does come with risk - developers that choose this route to market risk being lost among the many similar products in the cloud providers catalogues, so a strong external marketing programme is an essential component of this strategy. Global Organizations Leading the Standards Discussion As noted above, much of discussion around standards is taking place at a global level. Several groups are involved in the challenge to foster interoperability amongst the multitude of systems that make up the Internet of Things, as well as to increase the security of IoT deployments, to encourage openness, and to simplify data sharing. The groups, very often industry consortia, derive their authority from both their scale, their inclusiveness, and their technical abilities. Most these days take an open approach to standards development, meaning that the drafts are published and open to criticism and improvement. UK firms are usually able to access the draft standards and to provide feedback. A few of the organizations tackling this vast and complex challenge include: OPEN CONNECTIVITY FOUNDATION (OCF): The OCF unifies the entirety of the former Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) with leading companies at all levels silicon, software, platform, and finished-goods dedicated to providing this key interoperability element of an IoT solution. The OCF sponsors the IoTivity open source project which includes a reference implementation of the specification available under the Apache 2.0 license. The OCF also includes all the activities formerly sponsored by UPnP Forum. OCF and the AllSeen Alliance merged under the OCF name and bylaws with the mutual goal of creating a common IoT standard. OCF is doing its part through industry consolidation and more than 15 strategic liaisons with industry leading organizations including Thread Group and the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). INDUSTRIAL INTERNET CONSORTIUM: Formed in March 2014 by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel. The group focused on factory floors, assembly 7 ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS

8 lines, shipping docks, etc. and creates tests for real world applications as well as influences standards. It strives to accelerate IoT growth by coordinating initiatives to securely connect people, processes and data using common architectures, interoperability and open standards. IEEE: Designated IoT as an important multidisciplinary, cross-platform initiative, the group is working on IoT standards through the IEEE P2413 Working Group. It is drafting a standard to define an architectural framework for IoT, as well as standards in some key applications areas for IoT such as healthcare. INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE (IETF): Developing a number of Internet drafts through its various working groups. Its groups are also looking at RESTful design for Internet of Things Systems, and Diameter of Things (a protocol for real-time telemetry of IoT applications). THE THREAD GROUP: Founded in June 2013 by Yale Security, Silicon Labs Samsung, Next Labs, Freescale, Big Ass Fans and ARM. An organisation with over 230 members focused on IoT standards for home-based deployments. It has issued an IP-based wireless networking protocol for low power connected products (also called Thread) and provides a Thread interoperability certification program for products. GSMA/3GPP: The GSMA is working to develop LTE-based standards, most recently, LPWA network solutions that will bring the IoT to use cases that are just unaffordable under normal cellular telephony standards. It has developed IoT Security Guidelines to ensure best practices for security connecting and managing IoT devices on any mobile network, and it works with partners to establish guidelines on how machines should communicate. It is also working with operators to establish an ecosystem that delivers harmonized data sets and APIs. MulteFire, Wi-Fi Alliance, LoRa Alliance, Sigfox, Ingenu are working on developing both open and proprietary standards for utilizing unlicensed spectrum, such as WiFi and unlicensed mobile cellular technology for IoT applications. ETSI (for SDN/NFV elements that will be essential to large-scale IoT roll-outs). More than 800 member organizations from 67 countries on five continents. Produces standards for the ICT area, including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, broadcast and Internet technologies. ONEM2M: A global standards initiative that covers architecture, API specifications, security and interoperability for M2M and IoT technologies. It published onem2m Release 2 in Formed in 2012 by eight global standards development organizations (ARIG, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TIA, TSDSI, TTTA, and TTC) and seven industry groups (Broadband Forum, CEN, CENELEC, GlobalPlatform, HGI, Next Generation M2M Consortium, OMA). It includes over 200 member organizations. The Role of U.K. based Organizations in Setting IoT Standards Many UK based organizations and businesses are playing a role in influencing the development of IoT standards and frameworks. For instance, UK chip ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS 8

9 designer ARM was a founding member of Thread. There are also several other groups that have been involved in IoT standards discussions and can be a valuable resource to developers and businesses alike. Below is a list of organizations that can provide additional detail to help users get up to speed on the standards discussion. HYPERCAT: Hypercat is a consortium of global hardware and software vendors that is driving the Hypercat standard. The Hypercat standard is an open, lightweight JSON-based hypermedia catalog format for exposing information about IoT assets over the web. The aim of Hypercat is to help unlock the full potential of IoT by breaking down data silos, and providing an automated way of discovering services and getting access to them. The Hypercat Alliance strives to be a one-stop shop of best practices for IoT implementations. Its advisory board consists of Cisco, Symantec, WSP, BT and KPMG. These companies are building Hypercat into the work they are doing in the IoT smart city and manufacturing settings. Hypercat is being used in the CityVerve smart city project in Manchester as a way to build security into the project from the ground up. BSI: Working on standards for smart cities, including an initiative set up in partnership with the Future Cities Catapult: the Cities Standards Institute. The institute is building on work already done by the BSI to develop three standards: one on smart cities terminology, one on a smart cities framework and a third on a smart cities data concept model. In mid-2016 it published PAS 212 in conjunction with the Hypercat Alliance. PAS 212 aims to allow any IoT-capable device to interoperate easily with other devices. In addition, BSI is carrying out a smartcity standards mapping, research and modelling exercise. It has also started looking at IoT security issues. In August 2014, BSI launched a Kitemark for Secure Digital Transactions: certifying websites and apps that users can trust with their financial and personal details (TECH UK) IOT COUNCIL: Not to be confused with the EU s IoT Council, the UK s IoT Council (part of techuk) contributes to IoT policy-making by organising events, stakeholder engagement, responding to consultations, and publishing reports and other inputs designed to influence policy-making. It is also mapping IoT standards for different vertical industries. WEIGHTLESS: The Weightless special interest group is an industry body formed to promote the development and commercialisation of the open source Weightless LPWA wireless communications standard for IoT devices and applications. It has released three standards for different versions of Weightless. The latest versions (Weightless-N and Weightless-P) are positioned as a competitor to other LPWAN communications technologies like Sigfox, LoRa Alliance and cellular standards. In June 2015, Weightless announced that a Weightless-N network (operating at sub-1ghz using ultra narrow broadband technology) had been deployed in the city of London by N-Wave to demonstrate the capabilities of its technology. Weightless networks were subsequently deployed in Copenhagen and Esbjerg in Denmark. WIRELESS IOT FORUM: An industry body that is aiming to drive consensus and interoperability in low-power, wide-area (LPWA) wireless communication standards for the IoT, including both standards using unlicensed and licensed spectrum. It is not strictly a standards body but aims to promote appropriate solutions to the relevant standards bodies IOT SECURITY FOUNDATION: An industry association comprising over 50 members (including ARM, BT, Vodafone and various universities) that aims to promote best practice and knowledge sharing in IoT security. TECHUK: An organization designed to promote the tech sector in the UK by helping its members develop markets, broaden their networks, shape public policy issues, and provide insights on key issues. It has more than 900 corporate members. techuk recently launched its Trust Principles for the Internet of Things (IoT), a framework to help the IoT market grow by creating greater consumer confidence through better data transparency, interoperability and security. 9 ESTABLISHING THE NORM l AN INTRODUCTION TO IOT STANDARDS

10 Produced by INTERNET OF THINGS Digital Catapult, 101 Euston Road, London, NW1 2RA IoTUK.org.uk