An Analysis of M2M Platforms: Challenges and Opportunities for the Internet of Things

IoT (Internet of Things) resources could be conceived as service end-points for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) platforms, i.e. Things/Resources as a Service (TaaS or RaaS). Moreover, technologies involved in this platforms, provide to devices the needed capabilities to expose their services in a straightforward manner. Consequently, a solid, well-designed M2M/IoT platform should provide the basis for the simplified management of resources. The goal of this paper is to provide an initial analysis of the requirements for an M2M platform together with the considerations about IoT technologies, which will serve as a starting point for defining the actual services for IoT devices via M2M. Towards this direction, the current state of the art in M2M communications, in terms of standardization and already deployed platforms are taken into account, and an analysis of several of this platforms is done, showing up its main focuses and how all them have to evolve, in order to meet with upcoming requirements. The new trends about interaction between real and virtual worlds, and the challenges and opportunities identified, form the basis upon which every M2M/IoT standard platform should be built.