Jürgen Anke

EARLY DATA PROCESSING IN SMART ITEM ENVIRONMENTS USING MOBILE SERVICES

Abstract Smart Items are physical objects that are equipped with embedded computing units to enable close coupling of the real world to backend information systems. Such embedded computing units are called PEIDs (product embedded information devices). PEIDs can be RFID tags, sensor nodes, embedded PCs or similar devices. In this paper, we show how PEIDs can be used to support business decisions in the area of PLM (product lifecycle management) and discuss issues that arise from the restricted capabilities of devices and the large amounts of data to be handled. As current middleware systems are too inflexible to address these issues, we propose a new architecture based on mobile services. It effectively reduces the amounts of data to be transmitted by data processing close to the data source. Furthermore, it offers flexibility regarding to new data analysis requirements and heterogenous device capabilities.

Cost-based Deployment Planning for Components in Smart Item Environments

Middleware for smart items can facilitate the coordinated execution of distributed components for early data processing. These components can be deployed to different nodes in the middleware or even on the smart item itself. While such flexibility is desirable to fulfil various information requirements from backend applications, it poses the problem of finding good distributions for given components and component compositions. In this paper, we present an approach for deployment planning of components based on their expected resource consumption under a certain load. Using an example scenario we analyse the influencing factors on placement decisions. These are integrated into an evaluation schema. The concept is proven by an implementation, which is used to find suitable distributions for the example scenario with varying loads. We present the results and discuss the effect of different load settings.

A planning method for component placement in smart item environments using heuristic search

Smart item environments consist of networked nodes with heterogeneous hardware equipment and intermittent network connections. Using a common component technology allows for flexible distribution of components for processing of smart item data. Finding a good deployment plan for a new set of components in an infrastructure is called Component Placement Problem. We propose an approach for finding suitable deployment plans for components with special regard to the characteristics of smart item environments. Our method evaluates deployment plans in terms of both resource consumption and availability. From the analysis of the solution space we conclude that the number of network link uses is an important criterion for the quality of a deployment plan regarding both cost and availability. Based on this finding, we have derived a heuristic that creates deployment plans, which have a low number of link uses and are thus more likely of high quality.

A Flexible and Extensible Architecture for Device-Level Service Deployment

Integration of functionality and information from the Internet of Things (IoT) into the Internet of Services (IoS) is highly desirable but a complex endeavour. One hard to realize aspect is the remote deployment and configuration of services. While this has become commonplace in the business back-end, it is still a topic of research for networked embedded systems, mainly due to great heterogeneity. In this paper, we focus on remote management issues and propose a flexible and extensible architecture for systems performing deployment and configuration of services. The architecture is mainly targeted at environments comprising a large number of networked embedded devices, therefore integrating them effectively with the IoS. The key method of dealing with the observed heterogeneity is the dynamic exchange of algorithms (strategies) for steps of a common deployment process during runtime by configuration. Further on, we present an implementation of the architecture within the domain of future manufacturing.

Architecture Evaluation for Distributed Auto-ID Systems

Auto-ID technologies allow capturing the time and location of products in the supply chain for tracking and tracing. This paves the way for a variety of business applications, such as anti-counterfeiting, pedigree, and genealogy, which analyze the trace history of products to detect patterns or anomalies in the supply chain. While these applications have gained considerable interest recently, further work is needed towards integration of event data from heterogeneous auto-ID nodes in order to obtain the complete trace history for products of interest. As a first step, we perform an architectural study on interoperable auto-ID systems and present the results in this paper. We first review established techniques for data integration and data sharing as well as relevant industrial efforts. We then clarify the requirements that need to be addressed by an auto-ID network. Finally, we discuss four possible architecture alternatives for implementing interoperability in such a network and comparatively evaluate the approaches according to the identified requirements

Service lifecycle management infrastructure for smart items

Smart items are physical objects that are enhanced by information technology. There are a number of different smart item technologies available, all of which have different capabilities, protocols, and management functionality. These devices have become an attractive solution for enterprise scenarios. In such scenarios lifecycle management can become a challenge when considering the differences of the smart item types while at the same time providing an abstraction for common functionality. We propose an infrastructure for service lifecycle management of smart items. It is part of a middleware called Smart Item Services Infrastructure (SI)2, which is able to provide a uniform access to various smart item types. The presented architecture addresses the platform heterogenity challenge with a separation of platform-specific and platform-independent functionality. Service Lifecycle Managers for the individual platforms translate the platform-independent requests into the device-specific protocol. Besides platform abstraction, the deployment planning of services is a major requirement. Thus, we put special focus on the Service Mapper component, which determines a deployment plan that satisfies a number of constraints.

Towards the Omni-Channel: Beacon-Based Services in Retail

The integration of online and offline channels is a key challenge for retailers pursuing an omni-channel strategy to improve consumer experience. The prevalence of smartphones offers an opportunity to connect the physical and digital world. Bluetooth Low Energy beacons are small devices, which send out a signal that can be detected by consumer’s smartphones to enable location-based services. However, there are very few documented cases of beacon usage in Germany, whereas they seem to have a much higher adoption in the US. In this paper, we investigate the challenges associated with the use of beacons in retail. Using a survey, we aim to understand the attitude towards beacons-based services from a sample of consumers in Germany.

A Concept for Flexible Event-Driven Invocation of Distributed Service Compositions

Currently, flexible service compositions are invoked in a centralised manner by process execution engines. Although this approach is widely used for orchestrating Web services, it lacks scalability and incurs considerable overhead in network communication. This is especially disadvantageous in scenarios with embedded systems and other resource-constrained devices, mainly due to restrictions in network bandwidth or power supply. We present an application scenario to illustrate the drawbacks of centralised service invocation in these cases. Decentralised invocation mechanisms are a promising approach to overcome these problems. Based on the identification of service composition characteristics in distributed environments, we propose a decentralised mechanism using events and subscriptions. This mechanism can be employed for invoking distributed service compositions while offering improved scalability and efficiency. We conclude with discussing the advantages and restrictions of our solution compared to the centralised approach.

Design-integrated financial assessment of smart services

The emergence of data-driven services in the Internet of Things provides manufacturers of technical products the opportunity to become providers of services, which use data as primary input. The development of such smart services, however, is characterized by high complexity and uncertainty. To identify service ideas which are worth to pursue further, the potential financial impact is an important criterion. While the importance of a business case is acknowledged in service engineering, there is currently no concrete method that is integrated with the early design phases of smart services. Therefore, we propose a tool-based method for the design-integrated financial assessment of smart services. We use a design science research approach to develop a meta-model, which is implemented in a web-based tool. The experimental evaluation shows that the proposed tool provides benefits, especially in structuring the task for project teams. Therefore, it appears to be beneficial to provide interdisciplinary teams a tool-based support for the design and evaluation of smart services.