Book Image

Internet of Things for Architects

By : Perry Lea
Book Image

Internet of Things for Architects

By: Perry Lea

Overview of this book

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the fastest growing technology market. Industries are embracing IoT technologies to improve operational expenses, product life, and people's well-being. An architectural guide is necessary if you want to traverse the spectrum of technologies needed to build a successful IoT system, whether that's a single device or millions of devices. This book encompasses the entire spectrum of IoT solutions, from sensors to the cloud. We start by examining modern sensor systems and focus on their power and functionality. After that, we dive deep into communication theory, paying close attention to near-range PAN, including the new Bluetooth® 5.0 specification and mesh networks. Then, we explore IP-based communication in LAN and WAN, including 802.11ah, 5G LTE cellular, Sigfox, and LoRaWAN. Next, we cover edge routing and gateways and their role in fog computing, as well as the messaging protocols of MQTT and CoAP. With the data now in internet form, you'll get an understanding of cloud and fog architectures, including the OpenFog standards. We wrap up the analytics portion of the book with the application of statistical analysis, complex event processing, and deep learning models. Finally, we conclude by providing a holistic view of the IoT security stack and the anatomical details of IoT exploits while countering them with software defined perimeters and blockchains.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Free Chapter
1
The IoT Story

Blockchains and cryptocurrencies in IoT


Blockchains are public, digital, and decentralized ledgers or cryptocurrency transactions. The original cryptocurrency blockchain was Bitcoin but there are over 700 new currencies on the market such as Ethereum, Ripple, and Dash. The power of a blockchain is that there is no single entity controlling the state of transactions. It also forces redundancy in the system by ensuring everyone using a blockchain also maintains a copy of the ledger. Assuming there is no inherent trust in blockchain participants, the system must live in consensus. 

A good question to ask is if we have solved identity management and security with asymmetric cryptography and key exchanges, why are blockchains needed to exchange data or currency?  This is not enough for the exchange of money or data of value. One thing to note is that since the inception of information theory, when two devices communicate, Bob and Alice, they send a message or a bit of data. That information is...