Page 116 - 2015 Security in Telecommunications and Information Technology

3 Unleashing the potential of the Internet of Things

7 General characteristics of a gateway for IoT applications

7.1 Connection to the communication networks

The gateway has the general characteristic of connecting to the communication networks. Devices
can connect to the communication networks through such a gateway. In some cases, for example in
configurations with multiple gateways, one or more gateways are connected to other gateways (as
shown in Figure 1) and not directly to the communication networks.
The gateway supports different kinds of communication technologies to connect to different
communication networks.

7.2 Device access

The gateway has the general characteristic of supporting the access of devices. The devices can
connect to each other or to the communication networks by accessing gateways. The gateway
supports different kinds of device access technologies.

7.3 Protocol translation
The gateway has the general characteristic of protocol translation. The gateway supports the
protocol translation between the devices and the communication networks. In some cases, a
gateway translates the protocols among different devices which are connected to the gateway itself.

7.4 Interaction with applications
The gateway has the general characteristic to support the interaction with applications, including
common application logic interaction.

7.5 Adaptability

The gateway has the general characteristic of adaptability. It is expected that the gateway has
standardized interfaces. The gateway can be deployed in different application environments by
adapting according to functional components and related protocols.

7.6 Management functions support

The gateway has the general characteristic to support management functions, including device
management, network management and protocol management.

7.7 Security functions support
The gateway has the general characteristic to support security functions. The gateway provides
security mechanisms to support the security requirements of applications.
NOTE – Common security mechanisms used in a gateway include those for device authentication, data
encryption, privacy protection, etc.

8 Common requirements and recommendations of a gateway for IoT applications

8.1 General gateway requirements and recommendations
– Scalability
There may be a huge number of devices accessing a gateway. The gateway is required to be
scalable in terms of the number of connected devices and to support interconnection with
other gateways to increase the global scalability of the gateways.

102 Rec. ITU-T Y.4101/Y.2067 (06/2014)