Page 30 - Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

Figure 4: General architecture of smart cities in China 20

These reference architectures show the different layers and also the key components that could
be included in a typical smart city architecture.

4.2 Architectural principles

The following architectural principles are used to guide architectural decisions. These principles
are aligned with other leading national guidance documents regarding smart cities initiatives and
are synergistic with the overarching global sustainable development goals. The first four principles
are technical by nature, while the next three are more organizational:

Focus on data: The goal of this architecture is to open up and make data available with full context
to all parties, avoiding locked-in data.

Build with interface (APIs): Since we want to open up access to data, but also allow easy ways of
providing data to different solutions, applications, platforms.

Ensure a minimum of interoperability: Interoperability is foundational for smart city and community
platforms, enabling scaling of solutions, components and algorithms across platforms (see Box 1).

20 Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms