Networks of 'Things'

Published

July 28, 2016

Author(s)

Jeffrey M. Voas

Abstract

System primitives allow formalisms, reasoning, simulations, and reliability and security risk-tradeoffs to be formulated and argued. In this work, five core primitives belonging to most distributed systems are presented. These primitives apply well to systems with large amounts of data, scalability concerns, heterogeneity concerns, temporal concerns, and elements of unknown pedigree with possible nefarious intent. These primitives are the basic building blocks for a Network of 'Things' (NoT), including the Internet of Things (IoT). This document offers an underlying and foundational science to IoT based on the realization that IoT involves sensing, computing, communication, and actuation. The material presented here is generic to all distributed systems that employ IoT technologies (i.e., 'things' and networks). The expected audience is computer scientists, IT managers, networking specialists, and networking and cloud computing software engineers. To our knowledge, the ideas and the manner in which IoT is presented here is unique.

Citation

Special Publication (NIST SP) - 800-183

Report Number

800-183

NIST Pub Series

Special Publication (NIST SP)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

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DOI Link

Keywords

Internet of Things (IoT), Network of Things (NoT), reliability, security, trust, trustworthiness, sensors, big data, composability, distributed system.

Citation

Voas, J. (2016), Networks of 'Things', Special Publication (NIST SP), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-183 (Accessed May 4, 2026)

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