Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
PHASE II: SMART SPACE
DEVELOPMENT
IOP DEVELOPMENT
IOP Requirements
Challenges and Issues
When the development of the IOP began, there
was no full understanding of the interoperability
models introduced in section 2. Thus, we studied
the existing interoperability models and came to
the conclusion of three interoperability levels;
device level, service level and information level.
The device level focuses on the connectivity,
network and data as introduced in Table 1. The
service level deals with the data, context, and the
change of context (see Table 1). The information
level is responsible for handling the meaning of
data. Thus, the information level interoperability
has a strong similarity with the consolidation
interoperability of C4IF and the semantic interop-
erability of LCIM. The key point, and strength
of our definition, is that we are only focusing
on information interoperability and its realiza-
tion in practice. We do not expect that all of the
devices are fully interoperable on the device and
service levels. The aim is that the device/system
manufacturers and providers use their existing
technologies and enhance their products with
information interoperability in order to share a set
of information with other device manufacturers
and smart space owners/providers.
The IOP requirements were distilled from the
scenarios defined for three smart spaces; personal
spaces, smart indoor spaces and smart cities. In
total, 56 scenarios with several sub-scenarios were
analyzed and transformed to IOP requirements,
classified into two categories; quality requirements
and functional requirements. Quality requirements
were related to the execution qualities: informa-
tion security, availability, performance, reliability,
adaptability, and usability; or evolution qualities
like integrability and extensibility. The functional
requirements of IOP concerned communication
styles, evolvability, dynamic, proactive and con-
text-awareness and heterogeneity of smart spaces.
The requirements were defined on a tabular form
Smart spaces are fusions of different software,
service and computer technologies. Therefore,
there are several challenges and issues that re-
late to the underlying platform that provides the
means for interoperation, i.e. an interoperability
platform, IOP. The other part of the challenges
and issues are related to the development of smart
space applications that are executed on top of the
IOP. The following challenges and issues were
identified and explored:
•
How to define the requirements for IOP?
•
How to specify the main features of IOP
architecture?
•
How to apply model driven development
to the IOP development?
•
How to guarantee the interoperability of
applications?
•
How to design reusable building blocks
and use them in SSA development?
•
How to make sure that IOP is used cor-
rectly and effectively?
•
How to guarantee that an SS provides the
expected quality level?
Solutions and Recommendations
The development of IOP and SSAs is progressing
concurrently. However, for the sake of clarity, the
activities for specifying, designing and implement-
ing IOP will be introduced first. Thereafter, we
will explain how SSAs are developed on top of
it. Thus, the understanding of IOP is a necessity
in order to understand our model and ontology
driven approach. In particular, based on the chal-
lenges and issues discussed above, this section will
cover the following aspects: IOP development,
ontology development, smart space application
development and the evaluation of smart spaces.
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