Page 958 - Unleashing the potenti al of the Internet of Things

7 Unleashing the potential of the Internet of Things

Introduction

Ubiquitous sensor network (USN) is a conceptual network built over existing physical networks
that makes use of sensed data and provides knowledge services to anyone, anywhere and at any
time, and where the information is generated by using context awareness [ITU-T Y.2221]. One of
the basic infrastructures of USN is wireless sensor networks that monitor physical or environmental
conditions. These sensor networks may use different MAC/PHY protocols and different transport
protocols, they may have different sensor node identification schemes and may use different
management protocols.
From the viewpoint of a sensor network management protocol, each sensor network may use
different sensor network management protocols that are optimized for its MAC/PHY
characteristics, transport layer characteristics and for each sensor network management information
base (MIB). For example, an IEEE 802.15.4 based sensor network can deliver a 128 bytes frame at
one time including 22 bytes of the IEEE 802.15.4 header. It means that a sensor network
management protocol for an IEEE 802.15.4-based sensor network should be designed considering
this frame size. The ZigBee sensor network based on IEEE 802.15.4 uses its own addressing
scheme and defines its own MIB.
Currently, many new sensor networking technologies are under development and it is inevitable that
optimized sensor networking technologies for a particular purpose will be deployed. This means
that there will be many heterogeneous sensor networks.

From the viewpoint of network management, managing each heterogeneous sensor network with
heterogeneous management protocols is impractical and an integrated management protocol for all
heterogeneous sensor networks is needed.

The common management information protocol (CMIP) [ITU-T X.711] is widely used in network
management systems. However, most TCP/IP devices only support SNMP. SNMP is favoured and
strongly supported by vendors, and it has been successfully adapted to manage wired and wireless
networks.

Due to the limited computing and communication power of sensor networks, the use of standard
SNMP in sensor networks is either impractical or impossible.

944 Rec. ITU-T Y.4701/H.641 (02/2012)