BIG IoT Bridging the Interoperability Gap of the Internet of Things Deliverable 7.1.a: BIG IoT Exploitation Plan first release Version 1.0 Date: 31.12.2016 This project has received funding from the European Union s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 688038.
Responsible Person and Affiliation Werner Schladofsky (Atos) Due Date / Delivery Date 31.12.2016 State Reviewers Final Martin Serrano (NUIG) Version 1.0 Darko Anicic (Siemens) Confidentiality Public 2016 1
Authors Organisation ATOS ECONAIS SIEMENS BOSCH SI CSI Piemonte Authors Werner Schladofsky Alfred-Paul Megner Dimitris Leonardos Jelena Mitic Arne Broering Thomas Jell Denis Kramer Claudia Simonato Luca Gioppo 2016 2
Table of Contents ABBREVIATIONS... 5 DEFINITIONS AND VOCABULARY... 6 1 INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE... 10 1.1 INTRODUCTION... 10 1.2 SCOPE AND STRUCTURE OF THE DOCUMENT... 11 2 BACKGROUND... 13 3 BIG IOT PROJECT AND EXPLOITABLE ASSETS... 15 3.1 REALIZING AN INTEROPERABLE IOT ECOSYSTEM THE BIG IOT APPROACH... 15 3.2 BIG IOT EXPLOITABLE ASSETS... 17 4 MARKET ENVIRONMENT... 21 4.1 ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING OFFERS AND DEMANDS... 22 4.2 CLOUD CENTRIC IOT PLATFORMS... 25 4.3 INDUSTRY CENTRIC IOT PLATFORMS... 28 4.4 COMMUNICATION CENTRIC IOT PLATFORMS... 29 4.5 DEVICE CENTRIC IOT PLATFORMS... 31 4.6 SME/STARTUP PLATFORMS... 33 4.7 OPEN SOURCE PLATFORMS... 36 4.8 CONCLUSIONS... 38 5 BIG IOT BUSINESS STRATEGY... 43 5.1 THE STAKEHOLDERS OF AN INTEROPERABLE IOT ECOSYSTEM... 43 5.2 PROPOSED APPROACH... 44 5.3 BUSINESS MODEL CANVASES FOR IOT ECOSYSTEM STAKEHOLDERS... 46 6 EXPLOITATION PLAN... 63 2016 3
6.1 EXPLOITATION, COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION STRATEGY - OVERALL PERSPECTIVE... 63 6.2 BUSINESS MODEL BASED ON OPEN SOURCE... 66 6.3 EXPLOITATION FRAMEWORK (PARTNERS STATEMENTS)... 67 7 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK... 70 FIGURES AND TABLES... 71 REFERENCES... 73 2016 4
Abbreviations Abbreviation API B2B B2C BIG IoT IC IoT JSON-LD OD OEM OSS RDF REST SDK SME UI W3C W3C WoT TD Meaning Advanced Programming Interface Business-to-Business Business-to-Consumer Project title: Bridging the Interoperability Gap of the Internet of Things Integrated Circuit Internet of Things JavaScript Object Notation - Linked Data Offering Description Original Equipment Manufacturer Open Source Software Resource Description Framework Representational State Transfer Software Development Kit Small and Medium Enterprises User Interface World Wide Web Consortium W3C Web of Things Thing Description 2016 5
Definitions and Vocabulary In this document several terms are mentioned that are often used differently even in expert discussions. To clarify the meaning of those terms in the context of this deliverable the following table provides a definition of terms. Term Accounting BIG IoT API Meaning in Document Context [Reference to Source] Accounting collects data about each access to an Offering and relates it to the respective Subscription. A set of specifications for Providers and Consumers to interact with the BIG IoT Marketplace to authenticate, register, discover and subscribe to Offerings; and perform accounting Consumers to directly access the Resources offered by a Provider The BIG IoT API defines the supported communication protocols, data formats, semantic descriptions, etc. In order to facilitate BIG IoT Applications, Services and Platforms to implement and use the BIG IoT API, dedicated Provider and Consumer Libs (SDKs) are provided for various platforms and programming languages, offering also programming interfaces to developers. BIG IoT Application (or short Application) BIG IoT Application / Service / Platform Developer (or short BIG IoT Developer) BIG IoT Application / Service / Platform / Marketplace Provider or Operator BIG IoT Core Developer BIG IoT enabled Platform (or short BIG IoT Platform or just An application software that uses the BIG IoT API to discover Offerings on the BIG IoT Marketplace, subscribe to Offerings and access the offered Resources. A BIG IoT Application acts merely as an Offering Consumer. A software developer that implements or integrates a BIG IoT Service, Application or Platform. The organization that operates a BIG IoT Application, Service, Platform, Marketplace instance. It is hereby not relevant if a particular instance is hosted on a the provider organization's own infrastructure or a 3rd party infrastructure. A software developer that implements or extends BIG IoT Marketplace and/or BIG IoT Lib components. An IoT Platform (or Smart Object Platform) that implements and uses the BIG IoT API to register Offerings on the BIG IoT Market- 2016 6
Platform) place and provide access to the offered Resources. A BIG IoT Platform acts merely as an Offering Provider. BIG IoT Marketplace The BIG IoT Marketplace allows Providers to register their Offerings (based on semantic descriptions) and Consumers to discover relevant Offerings (based on semantic queries) at runtime. It also provides accounting support for Consumers and Providers to track the amount of resources accessed, as well as a web portal for developers and administrators to support the implementation and management of their Applications, Services, and Platforms. BIG IoT Service (or short Service) BIG IoT User Billing Charging Device-level BIG IoT enabled IoT Platform (= Device-level BIG IoT Platform or just Device-level Platform) Function A BIG IoT Service implements and uses the BIG IoT API to consume and/or provide Offerings via the BIG IoT Marketplace. A BIG IoT Service can act both as an Offering Consumer and Provider. It typically consumes basic Information or Function in order to offer "higher-value" Information or Functions on the BIG IoT Marketplace. A User of a BIG IoT Application. A BIG IoT User is typically an employee of an Enterprise, SME or Organization (e.g. City Authority), but not limited to that. Billing collects Charging data and creates invoices. Charging is based on the collected Accounting data. The Charging Service multiplies the accounting data with the respective Price data of an Offering, and also takes into account special Consumer (group) pricing models, to compute the final amount to be charged. A BIG IoT enabled Platform that is implemented directly on a Smart Object, as opposed to on a backend or cloud infrastructure. Functionality that can be invoked by Consumers and is provided by a task on an actuator (as part of an IoT Platform) a Service that provides some computational functions or higher level functionality delegating to one or more lower level Functions Information Data provided to Consumers by a sensor (as part of an IoT Platform) 2016 7
a Service that takes one or more Information sources and combines them to provide some added value IoT Service (or short Service) IoT Platform (= Smart Object Platform) License Software component enabling interaction with resources through a well-defined interface in order to access or manipulate information or to control entities. An IoT Service can be orchestrated together with non-iot services (e.g., enterprise services). Interaction with the service is done via the network. (based on [IoT-A]) A computing and communication system that hosts software components enabling interaction with Smart Objects in order to access or manipulate information or to control them. An IoT Platform may be implemented on a backend or cloud infrastructure, or directly on a Smart Object. Interaction with the platform is done via the network. The Provider of an Offering can choose the License terms for the provided Information. Offering BIG IoT enables Providers to offer or trade access to Information and Functions with Consumers via the Marketplace. An Offering is defined by an Offering description, which describes a set of Resources offered on the Marketplace. It typically encompasses a set of related Information or Functions. An Offering description provides a semantic description of the Resource(s) provided to a Consumer once the Offering is accessed. The description also entails context and meta information about the Offering, including information like the Region (e.g. a city or spatial extent) where the Resource(s) relate to, the Price for accessing the Resource(s), the License of the Information provided, input & output data fields, etc. Offering Consumer (or short Consumer) Offering Provider (or short Provider) A BIG IoT Application or Service that is interested to discover and access IoT resources in order to provide a new service or function. A Consumer discovers and subscribes to relevant Offerings via the BIG IoT Marketplace, and accesses the offered resources via the BIG IoT API. A BIG IoT Platform or Service that wants to offer or trade IoT resources via the BIG IoT Marketplace. A Provider registers its Offering(s) on the BIG IoT Marketplace, and provides access to the offered resources via the BIG IoT API. 2016 8
Offering Query (or short Query) Physical Entity Price Resource Smart Object (= Thing) Subscription Consumers are able to discover offerings of interest on the marketplace by providing an (Offering) Query. A Query describes the properties of Offerings a client is interested in (Offering type, input & output data fields, Price, License,...) Any physical object that is relevant from a user or application perspective. [IoT-A] The Provider of an Offering can choose the pricing model (e.g. Free or Per Month or Per Access) and amount of money (if applicable) a Consumer has to pay when accessing a Resource. Abstraction for either Information or Function. A Device able to compute and communicate information about itself or related artifacts (Physical Entities) to other devices or computer applications; a Smart Object is typically attached to or embedded inside a Physical Entity. Smart Objects either monitor a Physical Entity (sensing) or interact with the physical world through actuators (actuation). Those functions can be either controlled autonomously by local computations or triggered from remote. Agreement to access the Resource(s) of a single Offering. This comprises: a Consumer's willingness to access the Offering (he checked License, service level, rating, description,...) the Consumer's consent to pay for the access to the Resources (according to the specified Price), if applicable 2016 9
1 Introduction and Scope 1.1 Introduction The Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced, since its very beginning, the notion about the sum of technologies that enable physical assets for becoming parts of information chains [1]. This notion about IoT as technology enablerhas experienced an increasing evolution and today, the IoT has become a reality not only for technology providers but information chains for businesses and consumers. In today s IoT applications the connected devices, or things, are the basis for the IoT, and they range from simple connected local sensors, devices i.e. light bulbs, thermostats, over personal fitness trackers, to world-wide geolocated shipping containers. Nevertheless the IoT application value reside in the capacity to process data in a productive manner via application services. Various studies around IoT evolution reflect significant growth of the IoT and its business value in the coming years. E.g., Gartner anticipates an increase from 6 billion connected devices in 2016 to over 20 billion in 2020 [2]. A recent McKinsey analysis [3] foresees that, by 2025, IoT applications will have an economic benefit of $3.9 to $11.1 trillion; up from $0.3 $0.9 trillion in 2015. Those studies are encouraging, since they suggest a tremendous impact of the IoT over the coming years, the opportunity for interoperability across IoT platforms. Nevertheless, the McKinsey analysis [3] also points out a significant threat to the estimated economic benefit: missing interoperability. Specifically, the authors state that a 40% share of the estimated value directly depends on interoperability between IoT systems, i.e., it can only be achieved if two or more systems are able to work together. E.g., an adaptive traffic control system of a city has more value, the more information systems it can interact with. Only if it can interoperate with different systems, e.g., for digital traffic signage, traffic lights, parking systems, or public transport, a traffic control system can reach its full potential. Establishing interoperability across different IoT platforms is the vision of the BIG IoT project 1 [4]. In order to support the development of cross-platform and even cross-domain applications and the emergence of an interoperable IoT ecosystems, BIG IoT delivers key technological enablers: (a) a common API for IoT platforms in order to facilitate easy and fast development of services and applications, (b) a marketplace where IoT platform providers and service/ application developers can trade access to their resources, i.e. offerings, and (c) 1 http://iot-epi.eu/ 2016 10
semantic models used for describing offerings. The marketplace is as a centerpiece of an IoT ecosystem and enables all stakeholders of the ecosystem to participate in revenue streams. However, to make such interoperable IoT ecosystems possible, the benefits for all stakeholders need to be understood and pointed out. While the value for the user (e.g., a city administration) is clear, some stakeholders have protected assets and benefitting from an interoperable ecosystem is not obvious. Thus, one of the key question to be answered in order to define an exploitation plan for the project is how the different stakeholders of an interoperable IoT ecosystem can benefit from it and create value. Therefore, the goal of this deliverable is to outline the characteristics of an interoperable IoT ecosystem, identifying the relevant stakeholder roles, and analyzing potential business models. 1.2 Scope and structure of the document At BIG IoT, a work package dedicated on Impact creation and exploitation and particularly the task 7.1 elaborates exploitation plans for the BIG IoT project. The exploitation plan activities are, together with the dissemination and open call activities, based on the input from work packages 2, 3 and 4 as depicted in Figure 1. Figure 1: BIG IoT Workpackages Iterations IIn this deliverable the initial exploitation plans are described and further update and refined view of the project s results and changed context will be included in subsequent versions. The main goals addressed in this deliverable as part of the task are as follow: 2016 11
Identify, revise and detail the business and marketing models of the project results (marketplace, services and applications, as well as BIG IoT API enabled platforms) Develop detailed business plan and marketing strategies for the project outcomes Monitor and analyze the market trends regarding the IoT ecosystems and smart object platforms as well as services and applications Analyze the economic impact of the project results on the IoT ecosystem stakeholders to foster a vivant ecosystem with the BIG IoT solution In the context of these goals, related activities in the form of BIG IoT internal workshops dedicated for the exploitation plan have taken place. The discussion and analysis of several possible business models of the BIG IoT ecosystem has been raised. Further, the discovery and definition of the main stakeholders in the IoT ecosystem value network and the development of business models for all main stakeholders giving all aspects of their business have been performed and are described in detail in this deliverable. The deliverable D7.1.a gives an initial view on the BIG IoT exploitation activities including a market analysis, the stakeholders of an interoperable IoT ecosystem and their value network and the applicable business model, and an initial exploitation plan with current activities and outlook to exploit the full potential of interoperability of the present and future IoT systems. The D7.1.a document is structured as follows: Chapter 2 Introduction and Background recaptures the main results of D2.2.a and provides an overview on the local pilots and relevant use cases. Chapter 3 BIG IoT Project and Exploitable Assets gives on overview of the BIG IoT project and results and compiles the initial view on the exploitable assets. Chapter 4 Market Environment gives an overview of existing studies and related work in this field of research for the BIG IoT market environment. Chapter 5 BIG IoT Business Strategy describes the key characteristics of interoperable IoT ecosystems, their stakeholders, and their relationships and analyses and discusses potential business models for the identified stakeholders. Chapter 6 Exploitation Plan gives an initial view on the exploitation with an overview on the intellectual property management including the OSS strategy, the exploitation framework with the partners statements and further exploitation details. 2016 12
2 Background BIG IoT relies on the market conditions and thus a comprehensive study on the IoT market as a whole and its development that can be found in [3] has been analysed. Based on a view of nine vertical markets, as similarly seen in [5], a market prognosis is presented. The key findings support our goal of enabling interoperable IoT ecosystems: the authors estimate that the potential economic impact of IoT applications in nine vertical markets may be as high as $11.1 trillion per year in 2025. However, interoperability between IoT systems is critical in order to reach this impact, and the authors expect that 40-60 % of potential value is generated through cross-platform IoT applications. Further, the authors identify most sensor-collected data is currently unused, e.g., an oil rig with 30,000 sensors is examined on which only 1 % of the data is being used, and this use is mainly related to monitoring purposes rather than provide significant and predictive analysis. Also in such cases, interoperability and facilitated access to the data will help in the future to improve this ratio of data being used, and quality of usage. In [6], two main classes of business models are distinguished. First, Digitally Charged Products, which refer to the new possibilities of the digital transformation for manufacturing industries. Second, the Sensor as a Service idea, where sensor data are collected, processed and sold. The second group characterizes also the approach of interoperable IoT ecosystems followed by BIG IoT (see Section 3), where IoT data sources are offered by IoT service providers. The St. Gallen business model navigator [7] analyses 250 business models applied in the past 25 years and identifies 55 patterns being used as basis for innovation of business models in the IoT. In the other hand the UNIFY project analyses in [8] a broad range of business models to provide a basis for the dialogue of the European Platforms Initiative 2 (IoT- EPI). The framework captures the challenges of building IoT ecosystem business models considering the heterogeneity of smart node devices at the edge, network technologies, multiple standardization initiatives, the immaturity of innovation, and the unstructured ecosystems. Following the above findings we have to distinguish between business models that (1) target end-users of the IoT and (2) those focusing on business to business revenues. The first case includes, e.g., production companies which are digitally upgrading their businesses from product selling to selling services. The second case includes business models that benefit from ecosystems and require centralized marketplaces for services and/or applications. Further, as the IoT combines the physical with the digital world and fosters cooperation 2 http://iot-epi.eu/ 2016 13
between partners from different domains, a huge number of stakeholders with a wide variety of interests are involved. This makes it difficult to overview the wide variety of business models, which can be complex. So in contrast to the so far usual value chains, the more powerful tool of value network analysis will be useful to identify more complex relationships between participants of the ecosystem (see Section 5.1). A conclusion of our related work analysis is that most of the current work is focusing on analyzing business models for device manufacturers. Analyses for IoT ecosystem value propositions are currently missing. At this point, this work extends the current state of art by identifying the relevant stakeholders and their potential business models within an interoperable IoT ecosystem. 2016 14
3 BIG IoT Project and Exploitable Assets This section describes the existing hurdles for igniting an IoT ecosystem and presents how the BIG IoT project aims at solving this (Section 3.1). Further, the main BIG IoT exploitable assets are briefly described (Section 3.2), in order to set the cornerstones for the business models analysis in Section 5. 3.1 Realizing an Interoperable IoT Ecosystem the BIG IoT Approach The basis of an IoT ecosystem is the thing, i.e., physical entity with a virtual counterpart that computes / communicates information and may be controllable autonomously or remotely. These things may be directly connected and accessible through the Internet, e.g., a Raspberry Pi or smart phone, which we call a device-level platform. They may also be connected through a gateway, which we call a fog-level platform, or there is an aggregating cloud-level platform, which is deployed on a server [4]. A few prominent examples of cloudlevel platforms are ThingWorx 3, AWS IoT 4, Xively 5, IBM Watson 6, GE Predix 7, Microsoft Azure IoT 8 etc. There are more than 360 IoT platforms today and the number is continuing to grow [9]. However, the landscape is complex; each IoT platform defines its own interface, data formats, and semantics. This situation is illustrated in Figure 2, which shows the variety of platform interfaces in form of varying shapes on the interface connector. 3 https://www.thingworx.com 4 https://aws.amazon.com/iot 5 http://www.xively.com 6 http://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/ 7 https://www.predix.io/ 8 https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/cloud-platform/internet-of-things 2016 15
Figure 2: The problem of missing interoperability 9 On the one hand, this situation is due to the unavailability of well-adopted, open standards and shared semantic vocabularies. While work on various IoT standards is in progress (e.g., onem2m [10] or OMA LWM2M [11]), none of the more high-level standards has reached broad acceptance, yet. On the other hand, the providers of IoT platforms intentionally choose proprietary interfaces. This helps to protect their environment. Once customers have invested in applications using the proprietary interface, the platform has defensible advantages. While this may be an advantage for platform providers once they reach a large customer base, this is a disadvantage for thing providers as well as application developers. The interface heterogeneity makes cross-platform applications more difficult to realize since supporting variety of interfaces is costly and increases time to market. Especially, small enterprises cannot afford providing solutions on all different platforms, as they can only provide applications for a small number of platforms, e.g., a traffic information application for one specific city. For thing providers, e.g., the public transport organization of a city, a vendor-lock is disadvantageous as it may develop higher contracting costs in the long run. Today, IoT solutions are often in vertical silos with no or little interoperability between them. The BIG IoT project addresses this gap of interoperability between IoT platforms as illustrated in Figure 2. By establishing a common API (visualized as round interface connector), called the BIG IoT API, services and applications can easily access different IoT platforms. Thus, in addition to existing proprietary interfaces, platform providers can support the BIG IoT API in order to take part in the IoT ecosystem. The common place to discover offerings of platforms and services is the marketplace. The marketplace offers all stakeholders in the ecosystem the means to trade their offerings. Offerings encompass a set of related infor- 9 Icons by Freepik from http://www.flaticon.com 2016 16
mation (e.g., low-level sensor data or aggregated information) or functions (e.g., actuation tasks or computational functions). As depicted in Figure 3, we distinguish between services and applications. While the latter act only as consumers of offerings registered at the marketplace, services act both as consumers and providers of offerings. An IoT platform acts as provider of offerings. In this way, platform providers may take part in the IoT ecosystem and reach business partners from other domains who are otherwise out of reach. Figure 3: BIG IoT approach towards an interoperable IoT ecosystem 10 3.2 BIG IoT Exploitable Assets The main exploitable assets of BIG IoT are depicted in the Figure 4. By using (a) BIG IoT API consumers (services/applications) and providers (platforms/services) are able to discover, access and register offerings on (b) the BIG IoT Marketplace based on (c) shared Semantic Models. Each of these assets will be briefly described in the following sections. More detailed specification is available in the deliverables D2.4.a 11, D3.1.a 12, D3.2.a 13, D4.1.a 14, D4.2.a 15 and D4.3.a 16. 10 Icons by Freepik from http://www.flaticon.com 11 D2.4.a High level architecture Specification 12 D3.1.a BIG IoT API Design 13 D3.2.a Semantic Interoperability Design for Smart Object Platforms and Services 14 D4.1.a Marketplace Design Specification 15 D4.2.a Semantic Model for the Application Domain 16 D4.3.a Automated Discovery and Orchestration 2016 17
Figure 4: BIG IoT Exploitable Assets 3.2.1 BIG IoT API The BIG IoT API, will be distributed to developers as an Open Source software library (BIG IoT Lib) in different programming languages (Java, Python) and comprises a provider and a consumer part that can be used independently or in a joint fashion. As described in D3.1.a 12, the provider part of the library is specifically designed for platform providers that want to register their offerings on the marketplace. It suits different deployment scenarios, thus it can be used for constrained device-level platforms but also for full-fledged cloud platforms (refer to D2.4.a 11 for a detailed architecture discussion).the consumer part of the library is suited for consumers of these offerings, either services or applications. Both libraries already provide functions to communicate with a BIG IoT marketplace without much effort from the developer. By providing different access methods (one-time vs. continuous access, stream-based access, synchronous vs. asynchronous access), the library is designed to be very flexible and to apply to as many application domains as possible. Due to its open source nature, the library allows any developer, no matter if he works for an SME, a large company such as Amazon or IBM or even as a freelancer to use BIG IoT technology and join the BIG IoT ecosystem. Especially for SMEs the value cannot be underestimated. Usually, establishing technical collaborations with other companies is cumbersome due to extensive integration effort up front. This prevents potential valuable collaboration to be established if integration costs are too high. By using the BIG IoT API, the SME would just need to invest a one-time effort for integrating their legacy system with the BIG IoT library but afterwards they are able to connect to all providers on the BIG IoT marketplace. The more SMEs and large companies integrate with BIG IoT, the more the value increases. Since the BIG IoT Lib is designed to make the integration as easy as possible, the cost/value trend is shifted towards bigger value. 2016 18
The BIG IoT Lib can be used in existing IoT platforms, as a plug-in that allows an IoT provider to enlarge its user base (market share). Also, it could be used by platform vendors to add additional components to it and sold as-a-service to customers thus extending the provider's service portfolio. The fact that the BIG IoT Lib is distributed as open source should foster the further development of the library, even after the project has ended. This will ensure that the BIG IoT ecosystem will grow beyond the existing contributors. A demo application has been developed which can be used by early adopters to get familiar with the way how the BIG IoT lib is supposed to be used. 3.2.2 BIG IoT Marketplace The BIG IoT marketplace provides a valuable asset in the BIG IoT ecosystem. It is built up as a component architecture and provides an API to access all functionality (Marketplace API) from the outside. This API is used by the BIG IoT consumer and provider libraries to register and access offerings. Since it is a web API it can technically be also accessed by third party clients, although it is easier to use the provided BIG IoT libraries for that. The componentbased architecture of the marketplace makes it easily scalable so that it can work in a smart city environment with lots of services and applications being traded. For a detailed explanation of the marketplace architecture, please refer to D4.1.a 14. The marketplace can be hosted in different deployment scenarios. Thus, it would be possible to have multiple BIG IoT marketplaces deployed in a smart city, which might be run by different companies for different target groups. This would enable a competitive market for IoT resources. In addition, cross-city marketplaces can be established, which would make it very attractive for example for mobility providers such as Deutsche Bahn, or taxi companies. Since also parts of the BIG IoT marketplace will be published under an open source license, it can be expected that the development will go on after the project end which may well lead to new functionalities added to the architecture. The marketplace is also already accessible in the demo application for testing. 3.2.3 BIG IoT Semantic Models In order for the consumers to search for offerings and to be able to access them, the offerings are described and registered by using common semantic models. Every offering that is provided in the BIG IoT marketplace is described by an Offering Description (OD). The OD includes a local offering ID (unique to a provider), a name of the offering, and a semantic description of the resource(s) as well as the data/information provided to a consumer when the resource is accessed. The OD includes also information about 2016 19
the region (e.g. a city or spatial extent) where the resources relate to, the price for accessing the resources, the license of the data provided, the access control lists, etc. Consumers discover offerings of interest on the marketplace by providing an (offering) query. The query entails a specification of the type of offerings the consumer is interested in. Upon such a query, the marketplace identifies all matching offerings and provides them back to the consumer. The consumer can then chose the offerings of interest and subscribe to those on the marketplace. The BIG IoT OD is mainly built upon the current working assumption of W3C WoT Thing Description task force. Apart from the Core Semantic Model (described more in detail in D3.2.a 13 ) used for semantic description of basic concepts for offerings, we also need domain dependent Application Specific Models (described more in detail in D4.2.a 15 ) and vocabularies in order to implement different use cases. The purpose of these vocabularies is to ensure semantic interoperability between applications and services within BIG IoT as well as across other Linked Data Platforms. For this, the core semantic model will be extended with domain dependent and domain independent vocabularies. However, our main goal is not to define new semantic models but to build upon widely used and standard vocabularies and to extend those if needed. We follow an approach of having simple and light-weight semantic models. The BIG IoT vocabularies will be open and defined with Schema.org-like approach. Since the majority of use cases in the three pilots planned in the project are from mobility domain, we are currently looking at mobility-related vocabularies that we plan to extend and promote as common semantics for mobility IoT applications. BIG IoT semantic models are grounded on the W3C standard (RDF, RDF(S), JSON-LD etc.). We also define a concept of a recipe. A recipe is a semantic template for composing different offerings. Recipes bring value to BIG IoT marketplace by providing attractive added-value services and applications. 2016 20
4 Market Environment The reference market for BIG IoT solutions is obviously strictly linked with IoT and IoT ecosystems evolution. The Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly developing, basically due to the rapid diffusion of low cost sensors. IoT offers a potential economic impact rising from 4 $ trillion to 11$trillions in a year in 2025 ( [3]) and the leading settings where the value is supposed to rise are, in particular factories (operations management, predictive maintenance), cities (public safety and health, traffic control, resource management) and outside (logistic routing, layout optimization, (self) driving vehicles and navigation). To have a complete perspective of evaluation, the whole IoT value chain should be considered. It is then necessary to broaden the perspective to IoT ecosystem, which is built on the interaction of various components (devices, platforms, analytics, services) able to deliver value-added information and synergistic solutions, based on IoT data. In this market environment, the first business model that has emerged is the vertical one. In this model, all the ecosystem components (devices, platforms, analytics and services) are provided by the same company, which can commercialize end-to-end solutions also to meet specific needs. This approach is helpful for the end user because there are no compatibility issues to deal with among the various elements, and there is a single contact point in case of problems. The evident disadvantages are related to the dependence on the vendors for improvements or expansions in the offering, and in the need to access several systems in order to achieve different tasks. The lack of well-adopted standards and shared semantic vocabularies simply act as a shield for platform vendors and as walls to be overcome by end users. The vertical business model has generated a fragmented framework that limits the development of the IoT market as a whole, as it slows the adoption of innovations and the enhancement of systems. The solution to this issue is a horizontal approach, whose key feature is allowing multiple providers to work with a common framework. This can be done both at gateway/fog level and at platform level; by making resources known and available with open functionality, innovators can exploit these resources by creating new devices and services or applications, instead of concentrating in finding solutions to access resources. However, this approach needs time to become appealing, since its value is in its offering: the wider it is, the more third-party developers will have an adequate market to serve. 2016 21
BIG IoT solution is exactly achieving the horizontal approach, taking over also the challenge that this implies. BIG IoT API and marketplace provides the opportunity to leverage data/services by relating them with other resources, which were not present or available on a single platform. Those resources can even gain more value in terms of usability for applications/services because of the relation with resources present on other platforms. It has to be considered that the BIG IoT success, and, at the same time the success of the horizontal approach and value maximization itself is strictly linked with the behavior of the companies that are the big IoT players. Their capability to seize the opportunity of overcoming the technical, organizational and regulatory hurdles that are intrinsic in the heterogeneous, non-standardized and vertically fragmented framework we described, instead of defending their captive market as far as this will be possible (as far as the market will allow it) is essential. In the following lines, we will analyze the potential demand and competitors of the BIG IoT proposal. Potential target customers of BIG IoT solutions could be, at the same time potential competitors in the sense that was described above, depending on the strategy of platform vendors to open access to resources or keeping it close. 4.1 Analysis of the Existing Offers and Demands Market evolution has brought the building of end-to-end systems (the vertical approach above described) to adopt solutions that embed major parts of an end-to end IoT system in repeatable building blocks to be adopted in several verticals: namely, IoT Platforms. IoT platforms allow shortening the time-to-market for IoT solutions, and they also reduce IoT systems development time and costs. They have grown in popularity, as it has been shown by the recent Gartner Hype Cycle (Figure 5) and they represent the main building block of Internet of Things. 2016 22
Figure 5: Gartner Hype Cycle 17 As a consequence of the above described existing framework, IoT platform vendors have to be considered as the main target of BIG IoT solutions if we assume that the evolution towards the horizontal approach will be the evolution of a more mature IoT market, and so demand will be oriented in finding interoperability solutions. Existing IoT platforms, that, as it has been said, are at the moment estimated to be around 360 ( [9]), are very recent since 70% of them is operating only since 2013. The IoT Platform market has been led by American companies but then has grown also in Europe and Asia. US market and European one are similar as for the different company types that characterize IoT platform framework, though in Europe, both start-ups and established companies are taking part of the IoT platform market and also Open Source projects deserve a relevant part of the existing landscape. This heterogeneity ensures the continuity of the market. Going deeper with the analysis, it seems advisable to follow UNIFY-IoT project 18 approach to focus attention on a subset of IoT platform as the most likely to succeed on the market scene in the long run. UNIFY-IoT approach is a good starting point for BIG IoT market analysis for two reasons: on the one hand, the report was conducted in IoT EPI 19 perspective, also trying to position IoT-EPI project offer in the existing market landscape. On the other hand, the analysis considered various sources ( [12]), trying to balance their different point of view 17 source: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3412017 18 http://www.unify-iot.eu/ 19 http://iot-epi.eu/ 2016 23
and toning down their deficiencies, thus resulting in a complete and reliable state-of-the-art in a new and rapidly growing market situation. In the UNIFY-IoT approach, the selected IoT platforms showed out to have some valuable features concerning their ability in conceiving and developing software and activating the surrounding IoT network, namely: 1) percentage of market share; 2) community of developers creating value and making tools, libraries and platforms available; 3) revenue; 4) number of projects supported; 5) variety of applications sustained. From the initial landscape of more than 360 existing IoT platforms, 19 IoT platforms were selected following the above described conditions and two more platforms (FIWARE and OpenIoT) have been added as the most dominant platforms cited by the European research community. Further three platforms OneM2M standard based were selected due to perceived popularity in the user community (Open MTC 20, Eclipse OneM2M 21, InterDigital OneMPOWER 22 ). The 23 leading IoT platforms are classified in three categories: commercial platforms of global leading industry players (grouped in four categories, cloud centric, industry centric, communications centric, device centric), SME/Start-up, open source platforms with a section concerning OneM2M compliant platforms. Figure 6: Selection of 23 leading IoT platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) In the following lines, we present a more detailed analysis of the cited platforms in order to outline if they are suitable to be a target for BIG IoT solutions. Form a non-technical point of view, some aspects are critical for BIG IoT targeting: Orientation to business and not to final users, B2B IoT platforms manage bigger amounts of data and this goes in the direction of enhancing BIG IoT offering; 20 http://www.open-mtc.org/ 21 http://www.eclipse.org/om2m/ 22 http://www.interdigital.com/iot/ 2016 24
Orientation to Smart City/Mobility/Transportations since these are the fields of interest for Big IoT. This feature can also occur due to the platform vendors partnerships, that often are along the entire IoT value chain in order make them compete in the delivery of end-to-end solutions; Access facilities for external developers and lower barriers for innovation are consistent with BIG IoT goals. So, if IoT platforms facilitate Apps development by providing well-documented platform APIs they are considered interesting for the project, since developers are the second target of the exploitation strategy; Community engagement, in the same way as partnerships, the presence of a strong community around an IoT platform increases the potential for diffusion of BIG IoT solutions. From a technical point of view, every cluster of analysis is preceded by a detailed table of the platforms components, as presented by UNIFY-IoT project ( [12]). All the details were kept in this document for information completeness, but for BIG IoT purposes only a few of them are key features: Communication Layer: Business System Integration that allows integration with existing enterprise and other external systems (as BIG IoT one) Application Layer: Development Environment for Apps Service layer: Service orchestration that supports mashup of different data streams, analytics and service components Storage/database: cloud based storage and database capabilities Physical Layer: Operating system that allows low level system SW managing HW, SW and runs applications; modules, drivers and source libraries that reduce development and testing time. 4.2 Cloud centric IoT platforms This category of IoT commercial platforms is offered by larger cloud providers, that use this product to extend their cloud business into the IoT. They often provide IaaS (Infrastructureas-a service) solutions, such as hosting space and processing power for applications and services. 2016 25
Figure 7: Components analysis of Cloud Centric IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNI- FY-IoT project) Microsoft Azure IoT 23 The Microsoft Azure IoT platform is a full-scale IoT platform, providing core platform services and application level components. It manages device connectivity through the Azure IoT Hub, that allows bidirectional communication between IoT devices and the back end, and it supports several protocols. It provides device connectivity monitoring, device identity management, including device libraries for the most popular languages and platforms. The Azure IoT Gateway SDK deploys edge application logic. Further features concern data processing, analytics and management and a business integration and presentation layer responsible for the integration of the IoT environment in the enterprises business processes. By an App Ser- 23 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/iot-hub/ 2016 26
vice on the cloud, developers can build apps and APIs connecting to data in the cloud or on premises. Through a well extended partner network, this vendor enables a full end-to-end solution and a good engagement of developers through workshops, conferences and an extensive developer portal complete with tutorials. Amazon AWS IoT Platform 24 This platform provides cloud-hosted functionality that allows connection and bi-directional communication between platform and devices. Some REST APIs enable also direct communication between applications and IoT devices. A device shadows middleware allows access to device generated information, a sort of cache of past device state, to shield applications from intermitted network connectivity that could affect devices. A device side SDK in common programming languages (C, Javascript and Arduino) allows integration of devices in the IoT platform. AWS SDKs allow building IoT applications using language-specific APIs. Amazon offers a detailed developer guide for its AWS offering and organizes usually developer conferences, road show and hackathons. For BIG IoT project, this vendor is interesting for its worldwide size and scale and for the availability of IaaS services for other platforms, though it has currently few existing IoT platform reference projects. IBM Watson IoT platform 25 This platform is based on Bluemix, IBM s cloud Platform as a service, to support IoT build, run, deploy and manage IoT applications on the cloud. Watson IoT platform allows mobile back end monitoring, application monitoring, ecosystem partnerships and open source integration. Application development can exploit existing client APIs in different languages. Connection of devices is possible both directly and via gateways. IBM is engaged with developer communities through hackdays and workshops and has 33 different partners playing various roles across the IoT value chain. Apart from the other interesting features, this platform vendor is interesting also because of its focus on Smart city, mobility and connected car fields. 24 https://aws.amazon.com/iot/ 25 http://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/ 2016 27
4.3 Industry Centric IoT platforms This cluster of platforms is designed to address industrial IoT: it integrates extensive features also in comparison with business solutions (e.g. strong integration of IT and end-to-end security framework). It deals with connectivity of machines, sensors, devices and processes in the industrial sectors, to get increased manufacturing efficiencies, better resource utilization, and transformed support models. The development of Industrial IoT platforms is driven by large manufacturing companies. Figure 8: Components analysis of Indistry Centric IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) PTC Thing Worx 26 PTC ThingWorx Application Enablement Platform allows businesses to easily create end-toend IoT solutions in several fields. The cloud manages devices and allows data processing 26 http://www.thingworx.com/ 2016 28
using a model based development. Thingsworx offers a developer portal which gives access to platform documentation. This vendor is an early leader of the market (18 % of share, according to IoT Analytics ( [13]) experienced in software. As for Big IoT s interest, ThingWorx has a strong ecosystem partnership and, though focused on industrial sector, has also been used for Smart City and mobility solutions. Bosch IoT Platform 27 Being a BIG IoT partner, this platform enters by default in the list of platforms that will be targeted by Big IoT. The Bosch Software Innovations Suite is modular and allows flexibility of choice. The Bosch IoT Cloud is available on three levels: IaaS, PaaS (that provides developers with tools necessary to create native scalable applications), and SaaS, with a wide range of IoT solutions offered to customers. The platform is deployed in more than 600 international projects, but it does not provide openly access to platform APIs or training material. Partnerships are aimed at delivering endto end solutions around their platforms. GE Predix 28 GE s Platform as a service (PaaS) provides bi-directional cloud connectivity and management and it is focused on industrial assets as a multinational conglomerate, it operates in various segments, including transportation and IoT, merging its expertise in information technology and operational technology. A pipeline processing allows covering different data formats in order to manage predictive analysis and data modeling in real time. This vendor engages partnerships with software developers and big data platform providers, placing greater emphasis on ecosystem innovation process rather than serving competing interests. It offers developer training classes and co-creation workshops. 4.4 Communication centric IoT platforms This category of platforms focuses on connectivity of IoT devices via communication networks. These platforms are often the evolution of traditional M2M platforms, into platforms 27 https://www.bosch-si.com/products/bosch-iot-suite/iot-platform/benefits.html 28 https://www.predix.io/ 2016 29
that provide support for the full IoT service life cycle. Usually, communication-centric IoT platforms provide solutions for device producers to make their products connected; this orientation is not consistent with BIG IoT goals. Figure 9: Components analysis of Communication Centric IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) PTC Axeda 29 It is the second PTC platform that we analyze, after ThingsWorx: Axeda is a cloud-based platform able to manage connected devices and implementing IoT and M2M applications. Though focused on devices, the Axeda Build component offers an IoT application enablement platform that simplifies development and implementation of IoT applications, and represents an interesting element for Big IoT. This PTC platform does not have a developer community but relies on PTC partner network. 29 http://www.ptc.com/axeda 2016 30
AERIS IoT 30 The Aeris platform is a cloud-based IAAS platform focused on M2M. This particular focus and the fact that the platform is not directly offered to developers, nor API documentation is provided, makes it not interesting fo BIG IoT solutions. CISCO /Jasper 31 Jasper platform is mainly focused on device connectivity, device managing and IoT applications. Though Cisco Jasper control center optimizes the entire IoT service lifecycle and its applications are, among others, in the field of Connected cars, Transport and logistics, This vendor offers no information on protocols and APIs and it is slightly of interest for BIG IoT project. Ayala Networks 32 The main segment focus of this platform is Smart Home. Ayla networks IoT platform provides a cloud based application enablement allowing OEMs to connect devices to the Internet. The enterprise-scale cloud platform delivered as a service is composed of cloud services, embedded agents and applications libraries containing APIs for remote control of devices. Ayla does not provide API documentation nor specific protocols used for integration of devices into the platform; its strategy actually aims at supporting mainly manufacturers with a pre-integrated and close solution to be dropped into a manufacturers product. This approach makes it non-interesting for BIG IoT project. 4.5 Device centric IoT platforms These platforms are developed as hardware-specific software platforms implemented by producers of IoT device components as a backend, that is referred to as an IoT platform. Usually they become a starting point of an end-to-end IoT solution and pave the way to other ecosystems. 30 http://www.aeris.com/ 31 http://www.jasper.com/ 32 https://www.aylanetworks.com/ 2016 31
Figure 10: Components analysis of Device Centric IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) INTEL 33 This platform is a reference model for the secure connection of devices, trustful delivery of data to the cloud and analytics. It offers a middleware development environment that provides several APIs and supports different protocols. Intel promotes a community building around IoT solutions ( IoT solutions Alliance ). Considering the importance and market share of Intel, this platform cannot be ignored by BIG IoT. 33 http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things 2016 32
ARM mbed 34 This IoT device platform allows the creation and deployment of commercial and standardbased IoT solutions through appropriate cloud services, tools and develops ecosystem. It provides device software and cloud-based device management services. It works with REST APIs that simplify integration with any system. ARM mbed provide a partner portal o its site and it promotes contribution by the community, offering support for developers and GitHub for technical input. 4.6 SME/Startup platforms SMEs and Startups intervention in the IoT market is supposed to accelerate the adoption of IoT platform software technology from bottom up. 34 https://www.mbed.com/en/platform/ 2016 33
Figure 11: Components analysis of SMEs/StartUps IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) Xively 35 Xively is one of the oldest IoT middleware platforms that helps companies integrate their connected devices with business systems. The goal of Xively, which make it particularly interesting for Big IoT, is to simplify the creation of IoT enabled apps on top of connected devices, allow the integration of devices into existing systems and enable integrated service platforms. Xively offers well-documented API for developers and has a wide partner ecosystem. 35 https://xively.com/ 2016 34
ThingSpeak 36 It is an Open Data Platform for IoT, allowing bi-directional communication between sensors and the web. Released by iobridge in 2010 it is also social-network oriented and it allows data processing and visualization. Thing speak stimulates the community with conferences and meet-ups. The more direct connection and data retrieval from sensors can be of interest also from BIG IoT point of view. Carriots 37 Carriots is a PaaS that integrates applications with external IT system through a development environment, open API and web services. The platform collects and stores data from different devices and offers a software development kit for building applications. Its openness and potentialities make it interesting for BIG IoT project. Since Carriots goal is to facilitate and support IoT projects and applications towards its own cloud, a potential synergy with BIG IoT could result in an enhancement of Carriots offering through BIG IoT federation. Evrythng 38 Evrythng is a platform that allows the development of external applications; it supports companies on the development of products making easy the digitization and connection of devices to the Web. Integration of BIG IoT API could mean value added for applications. Evrythng supports RESTful API toolkits and several device protocols. SensorCloud 39 SensorCloud is a platform for storing, visualizing, managing and analyzing data. Its potential offering can be useful for increasing BIG IoT offering, though all data are private and can be shared only with other authorized users. It provides cloud services built on Amazon Web services. It provides RESTful APIs allowing devices and applications to upload data on the platform. 36 https://thingspeak.com 37 https://www.carriots.com 38 https://evrythng.com 39 https://sensorcloud.com 2016 35
4.7 Open Source Platforms Open Source Platforms are emerging merely in consumer IoT space (e.g. home automation sector) or as the result of IoT research initiatives; they address the problem of the lack of Interoperability/integration of different set of end devices and protocols. Because of this, this segment of demand can also show actors that could be competitors of BIG IoT. Figure 12: Components analysis of Open Source IoT Platforms (source: Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) 2016 36
Kaa 40 Kaa project is an open source IoT middleware platform useful for developing end-to-end IoT solutions, applications and smart products for different IoT domains. The use of the platform is free and it can be hosted by the end user; its business model is based on providing commercial services around the platform. The platform code is hosted on Github with an active developer community of about 15-20 developers. KAA provides support for customers/end users, API documentations, developer forums and webinars held on regular basis. From BIG IoT point of view, this platform is interesting not only as a target for BIG IoT integration (Kaa claims to have more than 100 community projects, but no reference of them can be found), but also to focus on its strategy and its results, being it quite similar to BIG IoT solutions structure. Besides, Kaa allows integration with Econais device platform. Nimbits 41 Nimbits is and open source data historian server built on cloud computing architecture, aiming at providing connectivity between devices using data points. The specific focus of this platform make it not interesting for BIG IoT. EclipseIoT/Smart Home 42 Eclipse Smart Home is a software containing the code and data structures necessary for a home automation server. It was developed by the Eclipse Java community and it is Open source. It offers online documentation and discussion for a for the developer community, but since its domain is not the one of BIG IoT, it has to be considered out of target. OpenRemote (HIT) 43 Similarly to the EclipseIoT platform, OpenRemote is an integration platform for residential and commercial building automation, freely available under an Open Source license. Recently, it began experimentation in Eindhoven to test providing of software to cities, using automation and crowdsourcing for monitoring purposes. Though providing extensive documentation and a wide international partnership, its focus is still out of scope for BIG IoT. 40 http://www.kaaproject.org/ 41 http://bsautner.github.io/com.nimbits/ 42 http://www.eclipse.org/smarthome/ 43 http://www.openremote.org/display/home/home 2016 37
FIWARE 44 It is an open platform, which provides a set of tools for different functionalities. It is an innovation ecosystem for the creation of new applications and Internet services. Despite its founding public-private partnership, its nature of hub brings it out of scope for BIG IoT project at least until thie ecosystem will become operational. Open IoT 45 Open IoT is a generic middleware platform for IoT applications, linking internet connected devices and semantic Web services. It is available through a Virtual Development kit, that makes it easily running. This solution among other features, allows the composition and delivery of IoT services that use data from multiple sensors. It offers open and standard APIs. As an European project, this solution does not have a specific business model but founds its exploitation strategy on the roadmaps pursued by single partners of the consortium. Focused on sensors, it has been adopted by UPC which is a BIG IoT partner; this platform is already involved in the project and will be supported by the BIG IoT API and marketplace. 4.8 Conclusions From the initial 23 relevant IoT platforms, the analysis brought to 16 IoT platforms that are potentially of interest for the BIG IoT federation. In the next versions of the document, they will be further analyzed, to understand their progresses in the market and from a technical point of view, so that only the platforms whose federation is feasible will be considered as target for the BIG IoT exploitation strategy. 44 https://www.fiware.org/ 45 http://www.openiot.eu/ 2016 38
Figure 13: potential BIG IoT target IoT platforms and Components analysis (source: BIG IoT project based on Report on IoT Platform activities- UNIFY-IoT project) IoT platform market is supposed ( [13]) to evolve, in the next years, accordingly to five major trends. In the following lines, we analyze them, as these aspects have to be taken into consideration also in BIG IoT development: platforms extending to the edge. Since analysis and reaction to data are as valuable as closer to the moment of data generation, IoT end-to-end platform evolution will provide application deployment closer to data source, also to avoid data with no value going to the back end, but additional computer power and storage will be needed at device level or close to it. security by design. IoT security is more complex than IT security as it deals with large numbers of devices connecting to internet and streaming data remotely. Security issues (modelling threats, risk assessing, weaknesses evaluation) have to be considered already in the architecture design of IoT solutions and at all level (hardware, software, networking and operating systems) also considering IPv6 protocol evolution. insights through analytics compatibility and outsourcing: the added value o IoT is not in the big amount of data produced (according to an IBM estimate, only 0,5% of all the available data are analyzed) but in the conversion of data into information for decision-making. For this reason IoT platforms are increasingly investing in analytic suites, experts and predictive analysis, integration and solutions for visualization of data streams. 2016 39
evolving standards: platform adaptability and integration depends on supporting the major communication protocols (MQTT, XMPP, UDP, etc) and web centric protocols for data exchange (e.g.json). Standard evolution remains a flux and probably no standard will cover all IoT use cases. Application layer should be opened for the intervention of developers. improved interoperability as a way to make systems of systems interact to create a real IoT ecosystem, generating value from streams of data even if a single platform is not able to give support to all existing use cases. This will be a key aspect for partnership and collaboration, not only among platforms but along the whole IoT supply chain, from devices to applications. 4.8.1 Existing supply - direct competitors It is quite difficult to analyze potential competitors of the BIG IoT project. The same IoT platform vendors are antagonists of interoperability development, as it could undermine the competitive advantage that the main IoT platform vendors have towards their captive customers. Interoperability is basically an issue for application and service developers and hopefully, it ll be perceived as value- added for platforms in the future, as the market will become more mature. In the following lines, we will nonetheless describe some initiatives similar, in some way, to BIG IoT that can be analyzed in the existing market framework to understand similar suppliers and to analyze their behavior. Hypercat 46 Hypercat is a consortium and standard driving secure and interoperable Internet of Things (IoT) for Industry and cities. Hypercat is an open, lightweight JSON-based hypermedia catalogue format for exposing collections of uniform resource identifiers (URIs) for exposing information about IoT assets over the web. (..) It ( ) has( )a strong security model. Using HTTPS, REST and JSON, each Hypercat catalogue may expose any number of URIs, each with any number of resource description framework-like (RDF-like) triple statements about it. Hypercat allows a server to provide a set of resources to a client, each with a set of semantic 46 http://www.hypercat.io/ 2016 40
annotations. Implementers are free to choose or invent any set of annotations to suit their needs. A set of best practices and tools is currently being developed. ( 47 ) Though focusing on interoperability at device level, Hypercat can be considered a BIG IoT competitor for at least three reasons: BIG IoT architecture already provides solutions (libraries) for the connection of devices even if, by considering devices with embedded platforms, it manages this issue as interoperability among platforms. Secondly, considering BIG IoT solutions only at cloud level is a limited vision of BIG IoT features as it would shift the focu of the project to the management of Big Data rather than real IoT. Finally, in a long perspective vision, interoperability should be considered throughout across all the IoT architectural platform components, if we consider that fully end-to end solutions will be the natural evolution of IoT systems. Considering the fields of application smart mobility and smart parking are addressed by Hypercat solutions; it targets parking operators and public administrations as final users of data gathered by its partners solutions and applications. Alljoin - Allseen Alliance 48 Alljoin is an open source software framework that allows communication between devices and apps. The solutions provides usable interface to address developers; users can even create their own interface. Alljoin is developed by more than 180 member companies of the AllSeen Alliance, including developers, manufacturers, and software specialists. It is a non profit cross-industry consortium dedicated to enabling devices, services and apps interoperability. Tha AllSeen Alliance is a collaborative project at the Linux foundation. Microsoft, for example, has integrated the Alljoin runtime (standard client) and Router Node service in Windows 10. Kaa 49 Being a middleware open source IoT platform project, started by Cybervision, this potential competitor focuses its business model on providing commercial services around the platform to facilitate the go-live of projects. The provided services vary from professional services (security, training, integration, issues) to engineering services (applications devel- 47 Taken from: http://www.hypercat.io/ Hypercat Wiki / FAQs http://wiki.1248.io/doku.php 48 https://allseenalliance.org/ 49 http://www.kaaproject.org/ 2016 41
opment), and production support services (installation, configuration, management). Cybervision partnership program aims to engage stakeholders to integrate the Kaa platform into the partners product thus enlarging its appeal. Kaa business model can, under various aspects, be similar to BIG IoT project, if we think about open source and services selling. At the moment, the success of this approach is not documented since no information about its partnership is available on the web. 2016 42
5 BIG IoT Business strategy As discussed in Section 2, interoperability is needed to exploit the economic impact and all business opportunities emerging from the IoT. In this section, we analyze how the different stakeholders can be identified (see Section 5.1) which can enhance value propositions of their current business models in such interoperable IoT ecosystems. Further, we discuss these business models and identify the importance of a marketplace as a central point of exposition and trading of offerings from heterogeneous IoT platforms and services. 5.1 The Stakeholders of an Interoperable IoT Ecosystem In order to better understand the different stakeholders and their motivation in such an IoT ecosystem, as being realized by BIG IoT, we have created a value network model depicted in Figure 14. Value network analysis is a business modeling methodology that visualizes business activities and sets of relationships from a dynamic whole systems perspective [14]. The nodes in this network represent different stakeholders of the IoT ecosystem. The lines between different nodes are the relationships between the stakeholders. All tangible and intangible value objects that are exchanged between different stakeholders are marked on the corresponding relationships. Figure 14: Value Network Model for interoperable IoT Ecosystems 2016 43
The BIG IoT Open Source Software (OSS) project provides tools, models and support to Service and Application Providers, IoT Platform and Marketplace Providers in order to enable them to use the BIG IoT technology to develop their assets. In return, these stakeholders provide requirements for further development of the BIG IoT technologies. The Thing Provider operates or sells devices (e.g., sensors or actors) as well as objects equipped with such devices (e.g., traffic lights equipped with radar sensors). He enables the connection of the provided things to an IoT platform. The IoT Platform Provider has relations with the Data Owners whose data are being collected and provided as offerings on the marketplace. The Marketplace Provider on the one side facilitates the trading of offerings by providing means for offering s registration and search, as well as billing and charging for the usage of these offerings in return for the marketplace fee. On the other side, he enables the Service Provider to easily discover already registered offerings, build new services and then provide service output as new offerings on the marketplace, in return for the marketplace fee. Application Providers use the offerings traded on the marketplace to develop applications for their customers. By means of Recipes (templates for semantic composition of offerings), the Marketplace Provider can enforce the development of new innovative services and applications. Finally yet importantly, Standardization Providers contribute mainly with models and vocabularies to enable semantic interoperability. 5.2 Proposed Approach To invent, concept and implement the Interoperable IoT Ecosystem Business Model, the following approach is proposed. The starting point is customer segmentation with their needs and behaviors, following the value propositions needed to run the business model. The nine building blocks of the Interoperable IoT Ecosystem Business Model have been elaborated in the following order: The following picture shows the 9 steps how the canvas is discussed (see [15] and [16]): 2016 44
Figure 15: Overview of Steps in the Business Model Canvas 50 In the St. Gallen Business Model Navigator the following 4 aspects are proposed to be taken into account ( [7]): Figure 16: St. Gallen Business Model Navigator Aspects 51 The 4 aspects from St. Gallen Business Model Navigator (Who, What, How and Value) are related to the steps of the business canvases and can each be assigned to these steps as denoted in brackets at each step in the following short description of the considerations for each of the steps: 1.Step: Customer Segments (Who): Describing the addressed most important customer segments and roles, for whom the value is created. 2.Step: Value Propositions (What): Definition of the main products and services, that are delivered to the customers and creates value for them. 3.Step: Channels (How): Outlines the channels through which the customers are reached and served. 50 Source : http://businessmodelgeneration.com and https://strategyzer.com/ respectively 51 source: http://www.bmilab.com/fileadmin/images/home/the_st.gallen_business_model_navigator.pdf 2016 45
4.Step: Customer Relationships (How): Gives a description of the relationship with the customers. 5.Step: Revenue Streams (Value): Defining the benefits and earnings for the business model for the value propositions consumed by the customers. 6.Step: Key Resources (How): Describing the physical, intellectual financial and human resources needed to run the business. 7.Step: Key Activities (How): Showing the most important activities to be performed. 8.Step: Key Partnerships (How): Outlining the main partners and suppliers to provide additional external activities and resources. 9.Step: Cost Structure (How): Defining the principal cost to setup and run the business. The Business Canvases for the single roles in the ecosystem will be described in the next sections to evaluate parts of the hypotheses. Inputs for the building blocks are given by the project partners and also taken from other research and productive ecosystem evaluations and examples. 5.3 Business Model Canvases for IoT Ecosystem Stakeholders For analyzing business models of the different stakeholders of an interoperable IoT ecosystem, we have used the established business model canvas methodology with its nine building blocks according to [15] or 4 aspects according to [7] respectively In the following, the business model canvases of the main stakeholders of the interoperable IoT ecosystem are described. The inputs for the different building blocks have been assessed according to a survey among the industrial and research partners of the BIG IoT project and also taken from other research and productive ecosystem evaluations and examples. 5.3.1 Business Model Canvas of an IoT Platform Provider By using the business model canvas (Table 1), we analyze the main opportunities for the IoT platform provider that emerge from the integration with the BIG IoT API and participating in the Marketplace. An IoT platform value grows if it catches demand both from the side of IoT data providers (e.g., things providers or data owners) and from the side of data users (application/service providers). The main partners of the IoT platform provider are its suppliers (i.e., IT and IoT platform vendors). As the key asset of the IoT platform provider is the content available on 2016 46
the platform, the range of key partners further comprises things providers, marketplace provider, and data owners. In order to take part in the ecosystem, the BIG IoT OSS project as well as standardization bodies are becoming partners to the platform provider, since he can interact with them in order to influence interface definitions. The core activities of the platform provider are operation on data (their exposure), development of platform services, and sale of those services. To do this, the IoT platform provider exploits storage and computing resources, developing capability, data models, and networking. The key value proposition is strictly linked with exchange and exposure of data, data combination, and operational support. Customer relationships of the IoT platform provider are often strengthened through consultancy and personal assistance devoted to customer segments, such as IoT data users (e.g., service or application providers) and IoT data producers (e.g., public administrations, or utilities). In addition, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are often relying as customers on IoT platform providers, as they do not have the capacity to run their own IoT platform. The main costs are derived from the development, management, and evolution of the IT infrastructure as well as the data maintenance. The IoT platform provider can expect revenue streams from the customers through recurring fees (flat rate model) or through fixed prices based on individual contracts. Also, consulting contracts, e.g., for customizing the platform to specific needs, are possible. 2016 47
Table 1: Business Model Canvas of an IoT Platform Provider By participating in an ecosystem, such as the one realized by BIG IoT, the traditional business model of the IoT platform provider is strengthened, as the IoT platform becomes a product offered through the marketplace connected with the BIG IoT API. Through this registration on the marketplace, the visibility of the platform increases. The key value offered, the access and use of data, is facilitated by relying on a common API. This adds value for the customers and IoT platform users. The above advantages will eventually increase revenue streams. The BIG IoT solution increases the benefit in following aspects of the Business Model: Value Proposition: Usage of the BIG IoT API and a common offering representation in the BIG IoT marketplace enables domain independent provision of data. Discovery of data is made easy by the marketplace search and discovery features. Reuse of data and composition of data and services is enabled by semantic description of offerings, based on shared models. 2016 48
Services for charging and billing offered by the BIG IoT marketplace facilitate the platform provider to offer a common billing interface to all applications or services. Flexible deployment model allows working across all inter- and intra-segment partners of BIG IoT. Operational support can be provided with protection of investment and reusability for more than one platform. Key Partners: Partnerships with different standardization bodies and BIG IoT OSS project will ensure wider acceptance and thus higher protection of investment and future reusability of the platform interfaces. Marketplace Provider enables the provision of the platform offerings to a broader market than today, since currently only the segments of direct customers of the vendor and in a given vertical segment are served. Revenue Stream: price for flat rate, fixed price and consulting contracts include increased value for a given price, as the same platform will be able to interoperate with more services and applications also from different domains. 5.3.2 Business Model Canvas of an IoT Things Provider Things (the real-world objects connected to the IoT) represent the front-end of what the consumer will see, touch and feel when he first interacts with IoT technology. The device's task is to provide functionality and on a second level to interact with other connected objects in order to enhance the capabilities of an ecosystem and creating more comprehensive scenarios. Things can also generate data, which can be used by other devices or services to better accomplish their tasks. Putting these considerations in the context of BIG IoT, things their selves can become first-class citizens of the larger IoT ecosystem, through equipping them with the commonly defined APIs. By doing so, the business model canvas in Table 2 sketches out the relevant factors of a things provider from a business perspective. 2016 49
Table 2: Business Model Canvas of an IoT Things Provider Apart from providing the things, the value proposition of the thing provider is to facilitate the connection of the things with IoT platforms. This process is supported through common APIs, such as the BIG IoT API. Additionally, the common API can mask hardware complexity and abstract from the challenges of the underlying hardware by exporting a comprehensive and common interface. Among the ecosystem partners of the thing provider are module and integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers, who provide the components on which the design of the product is based, as well as the BIG IoT OSS project, which offers software that can be reused to integrate things. Key resources to be invested are developers that realize the hardand software. They implement the API as well as device-level applications and ensure that the process of development is smooth. Once a common and open API is chosen, the audience of developers can be extended by externals, which results in overall benefits for the ecosystem. The main cost drivers are R&D, operation, sales and marketing. The revenue stream is either coming from the operator of the things (in case thing provider sells things) or is coming from operation contracts, in case the thing provider is in charge of operating. Additionally, contracts to support the utilization of things may generate revenue. A model that will presumably become more and more important in the future is the generation of 2016 50
revenue through offering things as a service (e.g., railway companies may acquire entire locomotives on service basis, i.e., they pay the things provider per day of operation). Such service model contracts are further supported through common APIs, as defined by BIG IoT. 5.3.3 Business Model Canvas of a Service / Application Provider The service and application providers have a crucial role in an IoT ecosystem, as they bring additional value on top of the IoT platforms. Table 3 outlines business model considerations from their perspective. Table 3: Business Model Canvas of a Service /Application Provider The service provider as well as the application provider offer a number of value propositions within an interoperable IoT ecosystem. Based on lower-level input (i.e., an IoT platform or another service), a service or application can offer either higher value information (e.g., weather forecast based on temperature, humidity, and wind measurements) or added-value 2016 51
functionalities (e.g., switching light off in entire building based on single light switches). This enrichment through the chaining of offerings from different parties is valuable for customers. By utilizing the common API or even exposing it (in case of services), the integration with other components of the IoT ecosystem becomes easier. Hence, customers are again other application- or service providers with high-level capabilities, or also business users, e.g., organizations which utilize an application. Relationships to these customers can be maintained through support or even specific consulting. These activities are also a possible revenue stream, apart from the pay per use or a direct payment for the service / application. The key partners of the service and application provider are IoT platform providers, marketplace provider, BIG IoT OSS project, standardization providers as well as developers. The main activities are development, operation and marketing. 5.3.4 Business Model Canvas of the BIG IoT OSS Project Table 4 outlines business model considerations for the software, tools and services that are provided by the BIG IoT open source software project from the stakeholder s perspective. Table 4: Business Model Canvas of the BIG IoT OSS Project 2016 52
For the participants of the open source project, the following business benefits can be considered 52 : a lower cost of ownership through the whole software lifecycle of the BIG IoT software pushing of the open standards for the BIG IoT API easier collaboration between all present and future stakeholders better and more reliable bug-fixing and new features which are discovered more quickly and solved with higher quality and on a broader testing basis increased security pushing innovation and coverage in the market 5.3.5 Business Model Canvas of the Standardization Provider Table 5 outlines business model considerations for the standardization body work for BIG IoT from the stakeholders perspective. Table 5: Business Model Canvas of the Standardization Provider 52 c.f. e.g. https://opensource.org/osforbusiness 2016 53
A fundamental brick of the interoperability of the IoT systems is the availability of appropriate standards for the BIG IoT API comprising the marketplace API and the data access API. The availability and the possibility to contribute to the standard is an essential benefit for all stakeholders of the BIG IoT ecosystem. The BIG IoT OSS project directly uses the specifications and interfaces with the standardization body for the implementation of the standards as standardized by the standardization body. 5.3.6 Business Model Canvas of the Data Owner Data Ownership is heavily discussed today. Therefore, we divide Data Owners into public organizations like cities, government, and private owners like parking garages, OEMs and other. For private Data Owners it is their right to decide if providing data at all, or when they provide to which conditions they charge or what legal constructs they impose. There are only those restrictions that apply to every contract. For public data providers there is an ongoing intense and controversial discussion if a city may sell data at all (selling taxpayer's money). Installation of sensors and necessary IT Infrastructure has already been paid by the public through their taxes. Current state of the discussion is that information gathered throughout already public funded sensors in a city must be made available public, meaning the city cannot charge for the data. Only option maybe to charge for maintenance of the IT infrastructure by a small access or connection fee. Additional this information must be made available discrimination free, meaning that potential users may not be hurdled by extra complex access or requirements for access. An API like the BIG IoT API could be one of a preferred choice for a city. This applies todays for Germany. 2016 54
Role: Device-level Private Data Owner Table 6: Business Model Canvas of a Device-level Private Data Owner 2016 55
Role: Device-level Public Data Owner Table 7: Business Model Canvas of a Device-level Public Data Owner 5.3.7 Business Model Canvas of a Marketplace Provider In the previous canvases we presented how the different stakeholders can enrich their value proposition to their customers by participating in an IoT ecosystem, e.g., through the BIG IoT solution. The following business model canvas (Table 8) summarizes the value proposition of the Marketplace to these stakeholders. 2016 56
Table 8: Business Model Canvas of Marketplace Provider Marketplace value propositions to fulfill customer tasks (provided both via BIG IoT Marketplace API and Web portal) are: Discovery of offerings Advertisement of IoT resource offerings to broaden customer outreach Provide charging information for consumers/providers as well as Charging and Billing of marketplace functions and consumed resources Management of common vocabulary The key value proposition of the marketplace is enabling the discovery of offerings from IoT platforms or value adding services. This discovery is provided as searching capabilities on a user interface, as well as through a machine readable API. Applications are specifically not listed in the marketplace of BIG IoT, as there are already many established app stores for this purpose. Nevertheless, also application providers (besides service- and platform providers) are the main customers of the marketplace. All stakeholders profit from the advertisement (or: marketing ) capabilities of the marketplace, which broadens the customer outreach of those offering providers. The discovery and advertisement of offerings is supported through 2016 57
the management of common vocabularies by the marketplace. This is the key to semantic interoperability within an IoT ecosystem. Common terms (e.g., traffic light or temperature ), which are used by multiple participants of the ecosystem, are registered and referenced at the marketplace. Beyond these capabilities for reaching interoperability, the marketplace supports charging and billing. I.e., a service or platform can state how much access to their offerings costs and consumers of those offerings have to pay. Through these functionalities, the marketplace enables the monetization of IoT offerings. As value proposition, the marketplace offers data access via existing IoT platforms in order to combine data of several of them for higher value of information and offer them again for other business customers. The value propositions and advantages by the marketplace are in detail: Rapid, applicable discovery of data of existing IoT platforms and services handling smart objects (Data easier to be found and used) Provision of search capabilities on portal and machine readable API (Enrich device API with semantic description) Interoperability between the vendor's systems and platforms via standardized and interoperable BIG IoT API Facilitating interaction across the vertical market segments Adding Value for customers of customers Add option to platform customers to bill others Open for orchestration between all kinds of IoT relevant services Covering diverse value chains end-to-end from platform providers to application providers Easier to integrate device at software level One-stop-shop for all IoT offerings providers and offerings consumers (Finding new customers, Easy integration of platform (registration)) Reducing costs by less adaption effort and empowerment for complete orchestration of IoT end-to-end use cases To operate a marketplace, its provider mainly invests into development and operation, but also product management (i.e., marketing, feedback, promotion, sales) is a key activity for success. Thereby, customer relationships can be initiated through consultancy, customizing assistance, and support. Then, revenue streams will be generated through contractual work for those activities. Apart from those, the marketplace has several interesting possibilities for creating revenue based on different payment models. These range from fees for better 2016 58
advertisement, over a pay per use (e.g., counting API calls), small participations in each payment, up to entry fees for service and platform providers to enlist their offerings. Following patterns of the St Gallen Business Model Navigator are appropriate for the BIG IoT Business Case: The main revenue scheme focuses on the main, possible customer relationship that encompasses consultancy and customized assistance. For the final design of revenue schemes and which business models are most suitable for the economic success we will need further study. At the moment, taking into account he 55 business patterns from St. Gallen ([9]) a mixture and hybrid application of the following patterns have been identified for the BIG IoT marketplace: 2 AFFILIATION, 11 DIGITIZATION, 13 ECOMMERCE, 15 FLAT RATE, 18 FREEMIUM, 21 HIDDEN, 23 INTEGRATOR, 25 LEVERAGE, 32 OPEN BUSINESS, 33 PEN, 34 OR- CHESTRATOR, 35 PAY PER USE, 37 PEERTOPEER, 39 RAZOR AND BLADE, 45 SELFSERVICE, 47 SOLUTION, 52 TWOSIDED, 55 WHITE LABEL and tries to avoid 27 LOCK-IN. The final decision about the success of the whole project will depend (a) on the willingness of IoT platform providers and platform vendors to adopt the BIG IoT API into their platforms so that a sufficient offer of data is available and (b) on the number of service and application providers to use these and add value to the data via their offerings. So, the lower the initial barriers to enter the marketplace, the more operators of a marketplace will be successful with their business. 5.3.8 Discussion on IoT Ecosystem Business Models The analyses above show that for each stakeholder, business models can be identified within an interoperable IoT ecosystem. From our perspective, all stakeholders can profit from interoperability and the creation of an IoT ecosystem. Naturally, their effectiveness can only be evaluated in practice. However, the success of an IoT ecosystem will depend (a) on the willingness of IoT platform providers and platform vendors to adopt common APIs into their platforms so that a sufficient offer of data is available and (b) on the number of service and application providers to use these and add value to the data via their offerings. I.e., the lower the initial barriers to enter the ecosystem and a marketplace, the more likely will be the success. Once a marketplace is established, IoT offerings of platforms and services can be easier found and used to create new, innovative applications. By means of semantic search of offerings, service- and application providers can find resources from different platforms and domains that best fit their needs. Additionally, by using a common API and vocabularies a service provider can more easily provide and trade its offerings. In this way, they can more 2016 59
rapidly deliver services to their existing customers and reach new customers. Furthermore, by using charging and billing of the marketplace they can outsource these activities. As discussed, value chains are evolving towards a value network comprising multiple stakeholders in the ecosystem. The marketplace provides brokerage access to the BIG IoT information and functions for the marketplace customers: Service Providers (Offerings Consumers and Providers) IoT Platform Providers (Offerings Providers) Application Providers (Offerings Consumers) When taking the primary functionality of providing a marketplace for the offerings, a general view on the clients of the marketplace only distinguishes between offering providers and offering consumers, as shown in Figure 17. Figure 17: The marketplace as centre piece of an interoperable IoT ecosystem To cover all types of platform and service providers, the marketplace provides the ability to define offerings for all kind of IoT data independent of the level of abstraction or aggregation. The offerings can be presented in the marketplace by their semantic description, 2016 60
associated license and price as well as descriptions. The offerings consumers can find and subscribe the appropriate offerings via the portal or the machine readable API utilizing the semantic search options. By the semantic description of the offerings of smart data, related functionalities or of services, and presenting the offerings in a machine-readable form in the marketplace via the API, the consumers can easily find the appropriate offerings they need, and subscribe to them. The offerings consumers and providers exchange the data directly via the BIG IoT API Libraries interfaces while the administration, management and billing of the data access for the subscribed offerings is done via the marketplace. In this way the BIG IoT solution helps to overcome the isolation in the vertical silos and to exploit the full potential of interoperability of the present and future IoT systems. By bringing together the offering providers (things / platforms and service providers) and the offering consumers (services and application providers) even for more than one service used in the overall value chain of an application and across all vertical segments, the marketplace utilizes the exploitation across the complete value network of an IoT ecosystem. The marketplace even pushes the utilization for all involved ecosystem stakeholders due to interoperable APIs and the advanced discovery as well as monetization facilities. To evaluate from an application / industry point of view the value and benefit, we have to investigate in the future through the lens of individual industries or sectors (see [3] and [17]). The existing vertical customer segments of whole industries will be affected by enhancement of IoT capabilities. They will cover more or less all market sectors, but with respect to IoT some will gain more potential than other. In particular, the following vertical markets are important for the IoT [3]: Factories Cities Retail environments Work sites Vehicles Agriculture Outside Home Offices Up to now, the data and services are isolated in these vertical silos but exploitation of total value could gain most by utilizing interoperability of different IoT systems in the same segment as well as in another segment. 2016 61
The interoperability and marketplace creates value for business users across settings and sectors. As a marketplace can provide presentation and promotion of the offerings relevant across multiple vertical segments as well as semantic search options, the ecosystem is stimulated to push inter-segment and intra-segment value generation as illustrated in Figure 18. Figure 18: BIG IoT solution facilitates inter-segment and intra-segment interaction 2016 62