IoT Ecosystem over Programmable SDN Infrastructure for Smart City Applications

This demo paper presents an innovative Software Defined Networking (SDN) based approach to deploying Internet of Things (IoT) applications for Smart Cities. The Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) together with NoviFlow Inc. and Spirent have jointly developed a demonstration showing how programmable SDN infrastructure can be utilized to significantly simplify the onboarding and provisioning of end-toend IoT solutions for use in multi-tenant networks. The demo features a dynamic global view of the deployed IoT resources with their associated network connections, and the use of OpenFlow Experimenter-based extensions to trigger automated detection and onboarding of IoT devices, ("things") as well as the insertion of metadata into IoT device flows to automate service provisioning. The demonstration also features an SDN application that interfaces between the SDN controller and the cloud orchestrator to instantiate dedicated IoT services inside LXC light containers. The demonstration architecture includes a variety of typical IoT sensors as well as a Spirent TestCenter (STC) emulating metro scale IoT network workflows, interconnected to the cloud via a network composed of NoviFlow 2128 OpenFlow 1.3 switches. To illustrate the use of the solution in a real-world setting, the Poznan Smart City use case is presented, showing how a single common SDN-based platform can be utilized to "slice" a city into multiple smart spaces running over a shared network and cloud infrastructure, and how OpenFlow-enabled network infrastructure can be used to automate the deployment of IoT devices for use in multi-tenant, cloud-based applications.