IoT Edge Challenges and Functions

2.1. Internet of Things (IoT)

Since the term "Internet of Things" (IoT) was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 working on Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology [Ashton], the concept of IoT has evolved. It now reflects a vision of connecting the physical world to the virtual world of computers using (wireless) networks over which things can send and receive information without human intervention. Recently, the term has become more literal by actually connecting things to the Internet and converging on Internet and Web technology.¶

Things are usually embedded systems of various kinds, such as home appliances, mobile equipment, wearable devices, etc. Things are widely distributed, but typically have limited storage and processing power, which raise concerns regarding reliability, performance, energy consumption, security, and privacy [Lin]. This limited storage and processing power leads to complementing IoT with cloud computing.¶

2.2. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has been defined in [NIST]: "cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction". Low cost and massive availability of storage and processing power enabled the realization of another computing model, in which virtualized resources can be leased in an on-demand fashion, being provided as general utilities. Companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. widely adopted this paradigm for delivering services over the Internet, gaining both economical and technical benefits [Botta].¶

Today, an unprecedented volume and variety of data is generated by things, and applications deployed at the network edge consume this data. In this context, cloud-based service models are not suitable for some classes of applications, which for example need very short response times, access to local personal data, or generate vast amounts of data. Those applications may instead leverage edge computing.¶

2.3. Edge Computing

Edge computing, also referred to as fog computing in some settings, is a new paradigm in which substantial computing and storage resources are placed at the edge of the Internet, that is, close to mobile devices, sensors, actuators, or machines. Edge computing happens near data sources [Mahadev], or closer (topologically, physically, in terms of latency, etc.) to where decisions or interactions with the physical world are happening. It processes both downstream data, e.g. originated from cloud services, and upstream data, e.g. originated from end devices or network elements. The term fog computing usually represents the notion of a multi-tiered edge computing, that is, several layers of compute infrastructure between the end devices and cloud services.¶

An edge device is any computing or networking resource residing between end-devices' data sources and cloud-based data centers. In edge computing, end devices not only consume data but also produce data. And at the network edge, devices not only request services and information from the Cloud, but also handle computing tasks including processing, storage, caching, and load balancing on data sent to and from the Cloud [Shi]. This does not preclude end devices from hosting computation themselves when possible, independently or as part of a distributed edge computing platform (this is also referred to as Mist Computing).¶

Several standards developing organization (SDO) and industry forums have provided definitions of edge and fog computing:¶

• ISO defines edge computing as a "form of distributed computing in which significant processing and data storage takes place on nodes which are at the edge of the network" [ISO_TR].¶
• ETSI defines multi-access edge computing as a "system which provides an IT service environment and cloud-computing capabilities at the edge of an access network which contains one or more type of access technology, and in close proximity to its users" [ETSI_MEC_01].¶
• The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC, formerly OpenFog) defines fog computing as "a horizontal, system-level architecture that distributes computing, storage, control and networking functions closer to the users along a cloud-to-thing continuum" [OpenFog].¶

Based on these definitions, we can summarize a general philosophy of edge computing as to distribute the required functions close to users and data, while the difference to classic local systems is the usage of management and orchestration features adopted from cloud computing.¶

Actors from various industries approach edge computing using different terms and reference models, although in practice these approaches are not incompatible and may integrate with each other:¶

• The telecommunication industry tends to use a model where edge computing services are deployed over Network Function Virtualization (NFV) infrastructure, at aggregation points or in proximity to the user equipment (e.g., gNodeBs) [ETSI_MEC_03].¶
• Enterprise and campus solutions often interpret edge computing as an "edge cloud", that is, a smaller data center directly connected to the local network (often referred to as "on-premise").¶
• The automation industry defines the edge as the connection point between IT from OT (Operational Technology). Hence, here edge computing sometimes refers to applying IT solutions to OT problems such as analytics, more flexible user interfaces, or simply having more computing power than an automation controller.¶

2.4. Examples of IoT Edge Computing Use Cases

IoT edge computing can be used in home, industry, grid, healthcare, city, transportation, agriculture, and/or education scenarios. We discuss here only a few examples of such use cases, to point out differentiating requirements. These examples are followed with references to other use cases.¶

Smart Factory¶

As part of the 4th industrial revolution, smart factories run real-time processes based on IT technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data. In a smart factory, even a very small environmental change can lead to a situation in which production efficiency decreases or product quality problems occur. Therefore, simple but time-sensitive processing can be performed at the edge: for example, controlling temperature and humidity in the factory, or operating machines based on the real-time collection of the operational status of each machine. On the other hand, data requiring highly precise analysis, such as machine lifecycle management or accident risk prediction, can be transferred to a central data center for processing.¶

The use of edge computing in a smart factory can reduce the cost of network and storage resources by reducing the communication load to the central data center or server. It is also possible to improve process efficiency and facility asset productivity through the real-time prediction of failures, and to reduce the cost of failure through preliminary measures. In the existing manufacturing field, production facilities are manually run according to a program entered in advance, but edge computing in a smart factory enables tailoring solutions by analyzing data at each production facility and machine level. Digital twins [Jones] of IoT devices have been use jointly with edge computing in industrial IoT scenarios [Chen].¶

Smart Grid¶

In future smart city scenarios, the Smart Grid will be critical in ensuring highly available/efficient energy control in city-wide electricity management. Edge computing is expected to play a significant role in those systems to improve transmission efficiency of electricity; to react and restore power after a disturbance; to reduce operation costs and reuse renewable energy effectively, since these operations involve local decision-making. In addition, edge computing can help to monitor power generation and power demand, and making local electrical energy storage decisions in the smart grid system.¶

Smart Agriculture¶

Smart agriculture integrates information and communication technology with farming technology. Intelligent farms use IoT technology to measure and analyze temperature, humidity, sunlight, carbon dioxide, soil, etc. in crop cultivation facilities. Depending on analysis results, control devices are used to set environmental parameters to an appropriate state. Remote management is also possible through mobile devices such as smartphones.¶

In existing farms, simple systems such as management according to temperature and humidity can easily and inexpensively be implemented with IoT technology. Sensors in fields are gathering data on field and crop condition. This data is then transmitted to cloud servers, which process data and recommend actions. Usage of edge computing can reduce by a large amount data transmitted up and down the network, resulting in saving cost and bandwidth. Locally generated data can be processed at the edge, and local computing and analytics can drive local actions. With edge computing, it is also easy for farmers to select large amounts of data for processing, and data can be analyzed even in remote areas with poor access conditions. As the number of people working on farming decreases over time, increasing automation enabled by edge computing can be a driving force for future smart agriculture.¶

Smart Construction¶

Safety is critical on a construction site. Every year, many construction workers lose their lives due to falls, collisions, electric shocks, and other accidents. Therefore, solutions have been developed in order to improve construction site safety, including real-time identification of workers, monitoring of equipment location, and predictive accident prevention. To deploy these solutions, many cameras and IoT sensors were installed on construction sites, that measure noise, vibration, gas concentration, etc. Typically, data generated from these measurements has been collected in an on-site gateway and sent to a remote cloud server for storage and analysis. Thus, an inspector can check the information stored on the cloud server to investigate an incident. However, this approach can be expensive, due to transmission costs, e.g., of video streams over an LTE connection, and due to usage fees of private cloud services such as Amazon Web Services.¶

Using edge computing, data generated on the construction site can be processed and analyzed on an edge server located within or near the site. Only the result of this processing needs to be transferred to a cloud server, thus saving transmission costs. It is also possible to locally generate warnings to prevent accident in real-time.¶

Self-Driving Car¶

The self-driving car, with its focus on safety, is a system where edge computing has an essential role. Autonomous vehicles are equipped with high-resolution cameras, radars, laser scanners (LIDAR), sonar sensors, and GPS systems. Edge computing nodes collect and analyze vast amounts of data generated in real-time by these sensors to keep track of distances between vehicles in front, surrounding road conditions, vehicle flow, and to quickly respond to unexpected situations. For example, if the speed of the car running in front decreases, speed should be adjusted to maintain the distance between the cars, and when a roadside signal changes, a self-driving car should operate according to the new signal. If such processing is performed in a central data center, network delays or data transmission errors can lead to accidents. Applying edge computing can minimize these network delays and data transmission errors, thereby improving safety. In the shorter term we can expect edge computing nodes to be at the base station or in road-side units. However, to further reduce reaction times, some edge computing nodes should be located in the vehicle itself.¶

AR/VR¶

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are likely to strongly influence the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) market in the future, since they can support innovative products in most other use cases including smart factories, self-driving cars, etc. In AR/VR, due to large amounts of data generated at endpoints such as mobile devices and PCs, user immersion can be significantly decreased by a latency of only a few hundred milliseconds. Therefore, using an edge computing infrastructure built close to endpoints can not only reduce the cost and latency of data transmission but also maximize user immersion. For example, in AR using edge computing, streaming video can be displayed realistically in higher quality, giving users the best possible experience.¶

Other Use Cases¶

Additionally, oneM2M recently studied several use cases related to edge computing, including: smart factories, smart transportation, an accident notification service, a high-precision road map service, a vulnerable road user service and a vehicular data service. These use cases are documented in [oneM2M-TR0001], [oneM2M-TR0018] and [oneM2M-TR0026]. Edge computing related requirements raised through the analysis of these use cases are captured in [oneM2M-TS0002].¶

3.1. Time Sensitivity

Many industrial control systems, such as manufacturing systems, smart grids, oil and gas systems, etc., often require stringent end-to-end latency between the sensor and control node. While some IoT applications may require latency below a few tens of milliseconds [Weiner], industrial robots and motion control systems have use cases for cycle times in the order of microseconds [_60802]. In some cases speed-of-light limitations may simply prevent a solution based on remote cloud, however it is not the only challenge relative to time sensitivity. Guarantees for jitter are also important to those industrial IoT applications. This means control packets need to arrive with as little variation as possible and within a strict deadline. Given the best-effort characteristics of the Internet, this challenge is virtually impossible to address, without using end-to-end guarantees for individual message delivery and continuous data flows.¶

3.2. Connectivity Cost

Some IoT deployments are not challenged by a constrained network bandwidth to the Cloud. The fifth generation mobile networks (5G) and Wi-Fi 6 both theoretically top out at 10 gigabits per second (i.e., 4.5 terabytes per hour), which enables high-bandwidth uplinks. However, the resulting cost for high-bandwidth connectivity to upload all data to the Cloud is unjustifiable and impractical for most IoT applications. In some settings, e.g. in aeronautical communication, higher communication costs reduce the amount of data that can be practically uploaded even further.¶

3.3. Resilience to Intermittent Services

Many IoT devices such as sensors, data collectors, actuators, controllers, etc. have very limited hardware resources and cannot rely solely on their limited resources to meet all their computing and/or storage needs. They require reliable, uninterrupted, or resilient services to augment their capabilities in order to fulfill their application tasks. This is hard and partly impossible to achieve with cloud services for systems such as vehicles, drones, or oil rigs that have intermittent network connectivity. The dual is also true, a cloud back-end might want to have a reading of the device even if it's currently asleep.¶

3.4. Privacy and Security

When IoT services are deployed at home, personal information can be learned from detected usage data. For example, one can extract information about employment, family status, age, and income by analyzing smart meter data [ENERGY]. Policy-makers started to provide frameworks that limit the usage of personal data and put strict requirements on data controllers and processors. However, data stored indefinitely in the Cloud also increases the risk of data leakage, for instance, through attacks on rich targets.¶

Industrial systems are often argued to not have privacy implications, as no personal data is gathered. Yet data from such systems is often highly sensitive, as one might be able to infer trade secrets such as the setup of production lines. Hence, the owners of these systems are generally reluctant to upload IoT data to the Cloud.¶

Furthermore, passive observers can perform traffic analysis on the device-to-cloud path. Hiding traffic patterns associated with sensor networks can therefore be another requirement for edge computing.¶

4.1. Overview of IoT Edge Computing Today

This section provides an overview of today's IoT edge computing field, based on a limited review of standards, research, open-source and proprietary products in [I-D.defoy-t2trg-iot-edge-computing-background].¶

IoT gateways, both open-source (such as EdgeX Foundry or Home Edge) and proprietary (such as Amazon Greengrass, Microsoft Azure IoT Edge, Google Cloud IoT Core, and gateways from Bosh, Siemens), represent a common class of IoT edge computing products, where the gateway is providing a local service on customer premises and is remotely managed through a cloud service. IoT communication protocols are typically used between IoT devices and the gateway, including CoAP, MQTT, and many specialized IoT protocols (such as OPC UA and DDS in the Industrial IoT space), while the gateway communicates with the distant cloud typically using HTTPS. Virtualization platforms enable the deployment of virtual edge computing functions (using VMs, application containers, etc.), including IoT gateway software, on servers in the mobile network infrastructure (at base stations and concentration points), in edge data centers (in central offices) or regional data centers located near central offices. End devices are envisioned to become computing devices in forward-looking projects, but they are not commonly used as such today.¶

Besides open-source and proprietary solutions, a horizontal IoT service layer is standardized by the oneM2M standards body, to reduce fragmentation, increase interoperability and promote reuse in the IoT ecosystem.¶

Physical or virtual IoT gateways can host application programs, which are typically built using an SDK to access local services through a programmatic API. Edge cloud system operators host their customers' applications VMs or containers on servers located in or near access networks, which can implement local edge services. For example, mobile networks can provide edge services for radio network information, location, and bandwidth management.¶

Life cycle management of services and applications on physical IoT gateways is often cloud-based. Edge cloud management platforms and products (such as StarlingX, Akraino Edge Stack, Mobile EdgeX) adapt cloud management technologies (e.g., Kubernetes) to the edge cloud, i.e., to smaller, distributed computing devices running outside a controlled data center. Services and application life-cycle is typically using an NFV-like management and orchestration model.¶

Resilience in IoT often entails the ability to operate autonomously in periods of disconnectedness in order to preserve the integrity and safety of the controlled system, possibly in a degraded mode. IoT devices and gateways are often expected to operate in the always-on and unattended mode, using fault detection and unassisted recovery functions.¶

The platform typically includes services to advertise or consume APIs (e.g., Mp1 interface in ETSI MEC supports service discovery and communication), and enables communicating with local and remote endpoints (e.g., message routing function in IoT gateways). The service platform is typically extensible by edge applications, since they can advertise an API that other edge applications can consume. IoT communication services include protocols translation, analytics, and transcoding. Communication between edge computing devices is enabled in tiered deployments or distributed deployments.¶

An edge cloud platform may enable pass-through without storage or local storage (e.g., on IoT gateways). Some edge cloud platforms use a distributed form of storage such as an ICN network, e.g., Named Function Networking (NFN) nodes can store data in a Named Data Networking (NDN) system, or a distributed storage platform (e.g., IPFS, EdgeFS, Ceph). External storage, e.g., on databases in distant or local IT cloud, is typically used for filtered data deemed worthy of long-term storage, although in some cases it may be for all data, for example when required for regulatory reasons.¶

Stateful computing is supported on platforms hosting native programs, VMs or containers. Stateless computing is supported on platforms providing a "serverless computing" service (a.k.a. function-as-a-service, e.g., using stateless containers), or on systems based on named function networking.¶

In many IoT use cases, a typical network usage pattern is high volume uplink with some form of traffic reduction enabled by processing over edge computing devices. Alternatives to traffic reduction include deferred transmission (to off-peak hours or using physical shipping). Downlink traffic includes application control and software updates. Other, downlink-heavy traffic patterns are not excluded but are more often associated with non-IoT usage (e.g., video CDNs).¶

4.2. General Model

Edge computing is expected to play an important role in deploying new IoT services integrated with Big Data and AI, enabled by flexible in-network computing platforms. Although there are lots of approaches to edge computing, we attempt to lay out a general model and list associated logical functions in this section. In practice, this model can map to different architectures, such as:¶

• A single IoT gateway, or a hierarchy of IoT gateways, typically connected to the cloud (e.g., to extend the traditional cloud-based management of IoT devices and data to the edge). A common role of an IoT Gateway is to provide access to a heterogeneous set of IoT devices/sensors; handle IoT data; and deliver IoT data to its final destination in a cloud network. Whereas an IoT gateway needs interactions with the cloud, it can also operate independently in a disconnected mode.¶
• A set of distributed computing nodes, e.g., embedded in switches, routers, edge cloud servers, or mobile devices. Some IoT end devices can have enough computing capabilities to participate in such distributed systems due to advances in hardware technology. In this model, edge computing nodes can collaborate to share their resources.¶

In the general model described in Figure 1, the edge computing domain is interconnected with IoT end devices (southbound connectivity) and possibly with a remote/cloud network (northbound connectivity), and with a service operator's system. Edge computing nodes provide multiple logical functions, or components, which may not all be present in a given system. They may be implemented in a centralized or distributed fashion, at the network edge, or through some interworking between edge network and remote cloud network.¶

   +---------------------+
   |   Remote network    |  +---------------+
   |(e.g., cloud network)|  |   Service     |
   +-----------+---------+  |   Operator    |
               |            +------+--------+
               |                   |
+--------------+-------------------+-----------+
|            Edge Computing Domain             |
|                                              |
|   One or more Computing Nodes                |
|   (IoT gateway, end devices, switches,       |
|   routers, mini/micro-data centers, etc.)    |
|                                              |
|   OAM Components                             |
|   - Resource Discovery and Authentication    |
|   - Edge Organization and Federation         |
|   - Multi-Tenancy and Isolation              |
|   - ...                                      |
|                                              |
|   Functional Components                      |
|   - In-Network Computation                   |
|   - Edge Caching                             |
|   - North/South-bound Communication          |
|   - Communication Brokering                  |
|   - Other Services                           |
|   - ...                                      |
|                                              |
|   Application Components                     |
|   - IoT End Devices Management               |
|   - Data Management and Analytics            |
|   - ...                                      |
|                                              |
+------+--------------+-------- - - - -+- - - -+
       |              |       |        |       |
       |              |          +-----+--+
  +----+---+    +-----+--+    |  |compute |    |
  |  End   |    |  End   | ...   |node/end|
  |Device 1|    |Device 2| ...|  |device n|    |
  +--------+    +--------+       +--------+
                              + - - - - - - - -+

In the distributed model described in Figure 2, the edge computing domain is composed of IoT edge gateways and IoT end devices which are also used as computing nodes. Edge computing domains are connected with a remote/cloud network, and with their respective service operator's system. IoT end devices/computing nodes provide logical functions, as part of a distributed machine learning application. The processing capabilities in IoT end devices being limited, they require the support of other nodes: the training process for AI services is executed at IoT edge gateways or cloud networks and the prediction (inference) service is executed in the IoT end devices.¶

+----------------------------------------------+
|            Edge Computing Domain             |
|                                              |
| +--------+    +--------+        +--------+   |
| |Compute |    |Compute |        |Compute |   |
| |node/End|    |node/End|  ....  |node/End|   |
| |device 1|    |device 2|  ....  |device m|   |
| +----+---+    +----+---+        +----+---+   |
|      |             |                 |       |
|  +---+-------------+-----------------+--+    |
|  |           IoT Edge Gateway           |    |
|  +-----------+-------------------+------+    |
|              |                   |           |
+--------------+-------------------+-----------+
               |                   |
   +-----------+---------+  +------+-------+
   |   Remote network    |  |   Service    |
   |(e.g., cloud network)|  |  Operator(s) |
   +-----------+---------+  +------+-------+
               |                   |
+--------------+-------------------+-----------+
|              |                   |           |
|  +-----------+-------------------+------+    |
|  |           IoT Edge Gateway           |    |
|  +---+-------------+-----------------+--+    |
|      |             |                 |       |
| +----+---+    +----+---+        +----+---+   |
| |Compute |    |Compute |        |Compute |   |
| |node/End|    |node/End|  ....  |node/End|   |
| |device 1|    |device 2|  ....  |device n|   |
| +--------+    +--------+        +--------+   |
|                                              |
|            Edge Computing Domain             |
+----------------------------------------------+

We now attempt to enumerate major edge computing domain components. They are here loosely organized into OAM (Operations, Administration, and Maintenance), functional and application components, with the understanding that the distinction between these classes may not always be clear, depending on actual system architectures. Some representative research challenges are associated with those functions. We used input from co-authors, IRTF attendees, and some comprehensive reviews of the field ([Yousefpour], [Zhang2], [Khan]).¶

4.3. OAM Components

Edge computing OAM goes beyond the network-related OAM functions listed in [RFC6291]. Besides infrastructure (network, storage, and computing resources), edge computing systems can also include computing environments (for VMs, software containers, functions), IoT end devices, data, and code.¶

Operation-related functions include performance monitoring for service level agreement measurement; fault management and provisioning for links, nodes, compute and storage resources, platforms, and services. Administration covers network/compute/storage resources, platforms and services discovery, configuration, and planning. Discovery during normal operation (e.g., discovery of compute nodes by endpoints) would typically not be included in OAM, however in this document we will not address it separately. Management covers monitoring and diagnostics of failures, as well as means to minimize their occurrence and take corrective actions. This may include software updates management, high service availability through redundancy and multipath communication. Centralized (e.g., SDN) and decentralized management systems can be used. Finally, we arbitrarily chose to address data management as an application component, however, in some systems, data management may be considered to be similar to a network management function.¶

We further detail a few OAM components.¶

4.4. Functional Components

4.5. Application Components

IoT edge computing can host applications such as the ones mentioned in Section 2.4. While describing components of individual applications is out of our scope, some of those applications share similar functions, such as IoT end device management, data management, described below.¶

4.6. Simulation and Emulation Environments

IoT Edge Computing brings new challenges to simulation and emulation tools used by researchers and developers. A varied set of applications, network, and computing technologies can coexist in a distributed system, which makes modeling difficult. Scale, mobility, and resource management are additional challenges [SimulatingFog].¶

Tools include simulators, where simplified application logic runs on top of a fog network model, and emulators, where actual applications can be deployed, typically in software containers, over a cloud infrastructure (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes) itself running over a network emulating network edge conditions such as variable delays, throughput and mobility events. To gain in scale, emulated and simulated systems can be used together in hybrid federation-based approaches [PseudoDynamicTesting], while to gain in realism physical devices can be interconnected with emulated systems. Examples of related work and platforms include the publicly accessible MEC sandbox work recently initiated in ETSI [ETSI_Sandbox], and open source simulators and emulators ([AdvantEDGE] emulator and tools cited in [SimulatingFog]). EdgeNet [Senel] is a globally distributed edge cloud for Internet researchers, using nodes contributed by institutions, and based on Docker for containerization and Kubernetes for deployment and node management.¶