Stephan Haller

The Internet of Things in an Enterprise Context

This paper puts the Internet of Things in a wider context: How it relates to the Future Internet overall, and where the business value lies so that it will become interesting for enterprises to invest in it. Real-World Awareness and Business Process Decomposition are the two major paradigms regarding future business value. The major application domains where the Internet of Things will play an important role and where there are concrete business opportunities are highlighted. But there are also many technical challenges that need to be addressed. These are listed and it is shown how they are tackled by existing research projects with industrial participation.

Integrating automatic data acquisition with business processes experiences with SAP's auto-ID infrastructure

Smart item technologies, like RFID and sensor networks, are considered to be the next big step in business process automation [1]. Through automatic and real-time data acquisition, these technologies can benefit a great variety of industries by improving the efficiency of their operations. SAPs Auto-ID infrastructure enables the integration of RFID and sensor technologies with existing business processes. In this paper we give an overview of the existing infrastructure, discuss lessons learned from successful customer pilots, and point out some of the open research issues.

Decentralized enterprise systems: a multiplatform wireless sensor network approach

Massively deployed wireless sensor and actuator networks, co-existing with RFID technology, can bring clear benefits to large-scale enterprise systems, by delegating parts of the business functionality closer to the point of action. However, a major impediment in the integration process is represented by the variety of customized platforms and proprietary technologies. In this article, we present a three-layer, service-oriented architecture that accommodates different sensor platforms and exposes their functionality in a uniform way to the business application. Our work is motivated by real business cases from the oil and gas industry. In our implementation, we use three sensor platforms (particle, muNode, and Sindrion) integrated through the universal plug and play (UPnP) standard and incorporated into an enterprise software system. The practical tests and application trials confirm the feasibility of our solution but also reveal a number of challenges to be taken into account when deploying wireless sensor and actuator networks at industrial sites.

Integrating Smart Items with Business Processes An Experience Report

Smart item technologies, like RFID and sensor networks, are considered to be the next big step in business process automation. Through automatic and real-time data acquisition, these technologies can benefit a great variety of industries by improving the efficiency of their operations. SAPs Auto-ID infrastructure enables the integration of RFID and sensor technologies with existing business processes. In this paper we give an overview of the existing infrastructure, discuss lessons learned from successful customer pilots, and point out some of the open research issues.

Going beyond auto‐ID: a service‐oriented smart items infrastructure

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to show that smart item technologies, like RFID and sensor networks, are considered the next big step in business process automation. Through automatic real‐time data acquisition, these technologies can provide benefits to a variety of industries by improving the efficiency of their operations. A service‐oriented infrastructure is proposed that enables the integration of RFID, wireless sensor networks and embedded systems technologies with existing business processes.Design/methodology/approach – This paper discusses the system requirements of a smart items infrastructure in detail. Based on these requirements, the overall infrastructure and the constituting components are introduced. Also, using two real‐world scenarios, it is shown how the proposed infrastructure can be used.Findings – The paper found a set of technical requirements for a smart items infrastructure. The research resulted in the architectural design presented.Originality/value – To the best of ones ...

Towards a future internet architecture

In the near future, the high volume of content together with new emerging and mission critical applications is expected to stress the Internet to such a degree that it will possibly not be able to respond adequately to its new role. This challenge has motivated many groups and research initiatives worldwide to search for structural modifications to the Internet architecture in order to be able to face the new requirements. This paper is based on the results of the Future Internet Architecture (FIArch) group organized and coordinated by the European Commission (EC) and aims to capture the groups view on the Future Internet Architecture issue.

A Domain Model for the Internet of Things

By bringing together the physical world of real objects with the virtual world of IT systems, the Internet of Things has the potential to significantly change both the enterprise world as well as society. However, the term is very much hyped and understood differently by different communities, especially because IoT is not a technology as such but represents the convergence of heterogeneous - often new - technologies pertaining to different engineering domains. What is needed in order to come to a common understanding is a domain model for the Internet of Things, defining the main concepts and their relationships, and serving as a common lexicon and taxonomy and thus as a basis for further scientific discourse and development of the Internet of Things. As we show, having such a domain model is also helpful in design of concrete IoT system architectures, as it provides a template and thus structures the analysis of use cases.

Einführung in die RFID-Technologie

Die offentliche Thematisierung der RFID-Technik und die Standardisierungsbemuhungen des Auto-ID Centers haben dazu gefuhrt, dass den Potenzialen der Technologie zur Verbesserung betriebswirtschaftlicher Prozesse zunehmende Bedeutung geschenkt wird. Dabei steht die Vermeidung von Medienbruchen, d.h. das Uberwinden der Lucke zwischen der realen Welt und der digitalen Welt, im Vordergrund. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt eine Einfuhrung in die RFID-Technik und beschreibt dabei die Komponenten eines RFID-Systems wie Lesegerat und RFID-Transponder. Zum Verstandnis der Funktionsweise eines RFID-Systems wird genauer auf die zugrunde liegenden Technologien und darauf aufbauend auf wichtige Auswahlkriterien fur RFID-Systeme eingegangen. Abschliesend liefert der Beitrag eine Ubersicht uber relevante RFID-Standards.

Privacy-Preserving Outsourced Profiling

Personalized services attract high-value customers. Knowing the preferences and habits of an individual customer, it is possible to offer to that customer well customized and adapted services, matching his needs and desires. This is advantageous for the entity offering the service (e.g., a retailer) as well, as it helps in creating additional sales or improve customer retention. The main unsolved problem today is that the profile of each individual customer would be necessary in order to create such services, posing severe risks regarding privacy and data protection. This paper proposes efficient encryption schemes that allow profiling to be outsourced while preserving privacy. The schemes ensure that the customer is always in control of his profile data, at the same time making shopping data across multiple retailers available to third party service providers to be able to provide targeted services.

Smart Governance in Smart Cities

Smart City bezeichnet als Begriff die Bereitstellung von Services aller Art sowie die Nutzung von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien in Stadten und Agglomerationen, um den sozialen und okologischen Lebensraum nachhaltig zu entwickeln. In Smart Cities stellen verschiedene Serviceprovider Services bereit, etwa zur Verbesserung der Mobilitat oder der Nutzung intelligenter Systeme fur die Wasserversorgung. In Smart Cities arbeiten staatliche, halbstaatliche und private Institutionen in Public Private Partnerships (PPP), also in Verbunden zusammen. Dies wirft Fragen zur Governance auf, die zu beantworten grosere Herausforderungen mit sich bringt. Aus Sicht der Smart City ist eine Orchestrierung – also ein Management von Verbunden von Serviceerbringern – zu erreichen, was Koordination, Alignment und Steuerung der Beteiligten als zentrale Anforderung hervorbringt. Heute wird Governance noch mehrheitlich aus der Perspektive einzelner institutioneller Einheiten verstanden. Die Beteiligten inklusive Servicebezieher mussen jedoch gemeinsam Policies aufstellen und diese umsetzen. Der Beitrag zeigt ein IEC-Rahmenwerk zum Management verschiedener Themen der Governance in Smart Cities auf, die im Verbund zu meistern sind. Er zeigt weiter auf, was fur Governance-Mechanismen uber die rein behordliche Governance-Struktur hinaus erforderlich sind. Es erfolgen Erlauterungen derselben an Fallstudien aus der EU und der Schweiz. Das Fazit lautet, dass aus empirischer Sicht das Thema Smart City Governance kunftig starker in den Fokus der Forschung zu rucken ist.