Comparison of Discovery Service Architectures for the Internet of Things

In the emerging Internet of Things rich data on real-world objects and events will be generated in vast amounts and stored in widely distributed databases. In truly global and dynamic application scenarios, intermediate brokers are needed to find these data, even if the exact location and form of storage are initially unknown to the requester. Discovery Services are aimed to fill this gap: they respond to requests for data on specific objects with a list of corresponding data providers. In this paper, we frame functional requirements for Discovery Services, and perform an overview and analysis of five established approaches for implementing Discovery Services that are taken from literature and industrial practice. In order to compare their characteristics, we develop a quality framework based on literature review and an ISO standard for software quality.