Microsoft Azure IoT-based Edge Computing for Smart Homes

In this work, an experimental Edge Computing (EC) system based on Microsoft Azure IoT has been developed for Smart Home Environment (SHE) as a case study. Several relevant issues have been tested such as device management patterns and some security concerns. The getting started issues of this technology have been emphasized. These include development machine compatibility, edge device choosing decisions, containers engine, and proper IDE for development. An emulated smart home scenario with five virtual sensor devices hosted by a Raspberry Pi edge device has been used as a case study to investigate the properties of the system. We have studied the results coming from applying the newly developed configuration management patterns to set or modify some environment variables remotely and inside the edge node. Furthermore, various operational cases have been studied to experimentally verify the difference when enabling edge analytics and when sending raw readings to the cloud. Indeed, the case of using symmetric encryption to increase the security aspects of the application has been studied and experimentally verified.