Flexible Representation of IoT Sensors for Cloud Simulators

In Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, actuators and smart devices are connected to the Internet. Application providers combine this connectivity with novel scenarios involving cloud computing. Some require in depth analysis of the interaction between IoT devices and clouds. Research focuses on questions like how to govern such large cohort of devices (i.e., often over tens of thousands). Distributed systems simulators help in such analysis, but they are problematic to apply in this newly emerging domain. Most simulators are either too detailed (e.g., need extensive knowledge on networking), or not extensible enough to support the new scenarios. This paper introduces our attempt to show how a state of the art simulator could model generic IoT sensors. We show the fundamental properties of IoT entities represented in the simulator. Based on these properties, we present an XML based, declarative modelling language aiming at: (i) describing the behaviour of sensors and their relation to clouds, and (ii) allowing rapid prototyping of simulations. Finally, we validate the applicability of our IoT extensions in five scenarios in the field of weather forecasting.