Customer Reviews

Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP: The Next Internet

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a well-written and clearly presented tutorial on the basics of Internet-based technology relevant to smart objects. It is not, however, a tutorial on smart objects. It treats them largely as abstractions and there is little linkage between technology and applications. Coverage of the smart grid, surely one of the most wide-reaching opportunities for innovation across many industries, is little more than a set of lists. RFID, the core to new generation supply chain integration, gets a page of coverage. There's scattered and cursory mention of what is happening in retailing, hospitals, links to information coordination and enterprise IT architectures, and competitive moves to exploit smart objects via both hardware and software. It curiously excludes any discussion of developments in mobile networks - 4G is not even mentioned and there is just a single paragraph on mobile telephony that looks very dated.

I hoped this would be a book that both widened the horizons of students in technical fields and provided a solid and reliable coverage of Internet basics for ones specializing in m-commerce, business IT and applied engineering. It doesn't really achieve either of these goals. I don't think it provides anything substantive or exciting about smart objects for either type of student.

The positives are that it is a lucid and organized introduction to Internet technology that a teacher could complement with articles and case studies on the application of smart objects.

The book is divided into 3 sections: The technology, the architecture, and the applications. It starts describing what a smart object is. Knowing about sensor networks it seemed to me that they were pretty similar to what this book is covering. However, smart objects are described as a superset of wireless sensor objects. Similar problems arise, however, and so the topics covered address the power, bandwidth, processing power/memory constraints. It provides an overview of what IP is and how it works so if you already know networking you could probably go through this book really quickly. There are brief coverage of QoS, security, and routing. Security included confidentiality, availability, and integrity but did not address authentication which I would think is an important topic for this type of network.
Overall, the organization of this book felt confusing. I understand the top 3 sections but then it's a potpourri of small topics, grouped together. It does provide awareness of certain areas of research or products that you can then go an look-up.

I found this book a great overview of IP and how it can be practically used in many situations. I had used the book at my previous job and bought the Kindle eBook for personal use. I was disappointed with the Kindle eBook as it is missing a table-of-contents as the standard book font is "bold" for some reason.

Many times a book is useful if you know the subject but want a different point of view or maybe some holes filled in, in your knowledge. This is one of those books. As with any subject the first chapter is a general over view of mostly TCP/IP and its derivatives. We see their function, strong points and weak. We get basic network concepts. They are simple enough for neophytes but may prove a bit boring to the average user.

The book then breaks more into speculation than actual practical application. However you will get the practical part as you purchase the items. My vehicle's SYNC system is already proving an interesting challenge. It intercepted a phone number that was not on the list and asked if I wanted my complete contact list downloaded. Meters, thermostats, and whatnots wait for you to tell them what to do or anticipate your wishes. You cannot let the air out of your tires without the car turning you in to the dealer for abuse. And everything is tied to your iPhone.

In any event the book is well structured and can be used as a fundamental text book and future reference.

The authors offer an extended technical promotion of why smart objects should be connected in a network that uses the Internet Protocol. If you are reading this review, you probably already know something about IP, and about how it underpins the Web. But the various implementations of the IP stack have usually been for machines that take their power from the mains, and which have a wired connection with extremely low bit error rates.

In contrast, the book describes smart objects as often small devices, severely constrained in power and bandwidth, and where the communication is wireless instead of wired. The low bandwidth is tied to the low power availability. In one quote, it is estimated that sending one byte wirelessly takes as much power as doing 8000 CPU cycles in the object. Also, the wireless link could be noisy. In part due to having other devices, that are not part of the smart object network, that use the same wireless wavelengths for their communications. So the book explains that smart objects are often known as Low Power, Lossy Networks [LLNs].

Much of the text consists of describing how despite the reputation of IP as being heavy to implement, that in fact it is possible to have lightweight stacks in a smart object. Test networks were described, where this was successfully done. The main take home message is that you can in fact have a lightweight IP stack, in terms of both the size of the run time code and of the buffer needed.

The authors also talk about how the universality of IP, especially IPv6, makes for using all-IP native implementations when smart objects talk to each other and to a gateway sink. Not having to translate between different protocols at a gateway improves efficiency, and allows for different vendors to easily plug in their IP compatible product or software, in much the same way that IPv4 grew to dominate wired digital communications.

Apparently I'm in the minority but this book was a bit of a disappointment. It does a tremendous job covering the technical aspects of smart objects and the next Internet, but leaves a lot to be desired in the social, financial and other considerations that take place with these changes. On one hand, it's not really a "how to" manual but also falls short on the "why to"...it's more like reading a laundry list of "what" that goes on for 400 pages.

As a person with a fairly high tolerance for tedium, I found the book well supported and exceptionally detailed (kudos) but still lacking that certain "something" that made me want to read it. Thinking it was just a bad day, I set it aside as this is an area of major interest to me...sadly, when I came back to it, the problem persisted. It's like reading a 400 page manual rather than an exciting, technically proficient coverage of one of the most interesting topics of the modern world. Unfortunately, many technical persons will probably be familiar with much of this. Managers and other stakeholders who need a technical overview (how to) in addition to the "why to" are likely to have a difficult time sitting through the entire 400 pages...only to find the "why" very loosely defined especially in consideration of the detailed coverage of the "how".

Bottom line - Technical and tedious. Leaves me wanting more and less at the same time. Might be a bit redundant for serious professionals in the field and fails to provide support and substantial insight into process for stakeholders and management.

Just as Waldseemüller's 1507 map of the New World set in motion the naming of America, Vasseur and Dunkels help today's engineers, computer scientists and students explore the world of tomorrow. The new IPv6 protocol for access to the Internet of things, like our washing machines, provides for 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses. No, I didn't write the word "trillion" by mistake three times.

In a future world of ubiquitous embedded computers, the authors provide us the context of history, outline issues such as interoperability so that our toys play well together and begin the basic outline of how to build the networks of the future. What are the smart objects? What hardware, software and protocols are needed? Those are some of the topics covered. The book also features case studies, which tell more complete compelling stories.

The book should and, more importantly, CAN be read by technicians and policy makers alike... being as readable as it is. My favorite section was on the 6LoWPAN adaptation layer... for handling packet fragmentation and reassembly. Who would have guessed optimization of transport could be laid out so elegantly? Don't try interconnecting smart objects at home without this path breaking guide. Whether your designing water-quality monitoring systems (i.e., pH, chlorine, turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, etc.) or designing routing metrics for smart object networks, this is the book for you.

Jean-Philippe Vasseur and Adam Dunkels write a fascinating look into the future of the Internet with their new book "Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP". Their goal here is to show that the use of IP for smart objects is not just a futuristic dream world of connecting the "Internet of Things", but a real possibility today. Using open standards and resources available today, this technology can move forward without the need of costly proprietary solutions. Their definition of what are smart objects becomes a little bit futuristic in scope because much of this new technology still lies in the development stage of production. Smart objects emerge from different technologies and scientific arenas. Borrowing much between computing and telephony, smart objects will use both of these to evolve and maintain standardization. The Internet protocols of today's networks have the means of making all these embedded systems work and communicate together properly. Now the social and political engineering begins by trying to make all the vendors play nice with one another. The book is structured so as to be a tutorial on understanding smart objects and how they relate to the IP world. I view this book and its' subsequent revisions to be used in Computer Engineering classes. Much of the book is an introductory look at the evolving IEEE 802.15.4 networks and IP protocols such as IPv6. This isn't a deep level study of programming but it is a good look at what is coming down the networking track. With everything headed in the "Green" direction, new technologies like smart objects will become bigger players in the globally interconnected world. Well worth the read and addition to the technology shelf.

I've worked in technical marketing and sales the past 35 years. Not an engineer, thus am unable to evaluate this book's premise--that IP protocol is the best for smart objects' design. Instead, I read such books to gain an overview understanding and conversational language to talk with the technology doers.

Having read numerous IT technology books, I highly recommend this book as among most clearly written. With its many lucid diagrams, this book even exceeds the outstanding graphical Visually series of books for easy-to-understand teachings.

As an easy example, its second chapter covers IP protocol architecture. I've skim-read 5 books explaining networking design and TCP/IP and never understood WHY TCP is NECESSARILY seperated from IP, as they mostly occur together. In just two paragraphs, this book's authors explain that in early TCP design, the creators foresaw that a single protocol could not accommodate both voice and data, which have diametrically opposite requirements in data reliability and transmissions delays. As a result TCP was broken down to a seperate IP layer that later designed lossy UDP was added for voice signals. I'm sure the other 5 books explained this reasoning somewhere buried in their hundreds of pages. With brevity and clarity, the authors also explain defintion of, history of, and design challenges of smart objects--all in less than 20 pages!

The first half of this book covers architecture--IP, transport protcols, security, web services, connectivity, routing, IPv6, smart object designs. The second half, the technologies, both software hardware. To gain an overview, this is among the finest technical reading books I've ever read. A good technologist can then easily find the implementation details elsewhere. So clearly written that even a junior high student can read this.

I wrote a lengthy review about this book on my website which I'm reprinting here. I cover wireless sensor networks and have watched it grow from being a glimmer in people's eyes to where they're becoming extensions of the internet. The area is currently difficult to navigate with a lot of work going on from disparate groups. Hence, this book is exactly what is needed to figure out what's really going on. Here's the review...

Akiba
FreakLabs

The Internet of Things is a buzzword that's generating quite a bit of hype at the moment. I'm seeing it all over the place to describe all types of disparate things but mostly being used as a marketing term. I suspect that the majority of the people that use the term don't fully understand its meaning or how it will be implemented/used. That's why I was very pleasantly surprised when I picked up the book "Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP" by Adam Dunkels (author of the ContikiOS, uIP, lwIP, and general programming extraordinaire) and JP Vasseur (distinguished engineer at Cisco, co-chair of IETF's ROLL working group, and one of the chairs for IPSO).

I don't really know JP Vasseur, but I've been an admirer of Adam Dunkel's work since I started in wireless sensor networks. In my mind, ContikiOS is one of the best operating systems/environments ever designed for wireless sensor networks, or what I like to call, "engineering hell". But that's a different story.

Before I get into what I thought of the book, I think it might be appropriate to give a bit of background on why I'm writing this post. In my opinion, the internet is basically a set of standards that everyone agrees to abide by. That standardization is what allows manufacturers and users to adopt the technology with confidence, knowing that they won't be the only ones or part of a minority of people using it. That also inspires confidence that time spent learning the technology and standards, how to use it, and developing applications for it won't be wasted. I think this is the reason why the internet became so popular within the last however many years/decades.

So when I hear the Internet of Things being thrown around nonchalantly by press releases, marketing people, or just in general, I tend to wince a little bit. There's a misunderstanding that anything that can connect to the internet, i.e. speaks TCP/IP and has a communications interface, forms the Internet of Things. The problem is that they're missing the whole part about standardization which is why the Internet of Things doesn't exist yet. There are still many areas that need to be standardized such as using UDP vs TCP, how security will be implemented (did you know that there is no standardized equivalent to SSL for embedded devices?), how device services will be discovered, how data will be exchanged, what types of device profiles will exist, how web services will be implemented, etc. Actually, all of this and more is being discussed and hammered out right now in the IETF working groups. Check out the 6LoWPAN , ROLL , and CoRE groups if you're interested.

Without the standardization, then what you have are technology islands, archipelagos of data formats, protocols, and other silly things. It's basically what you see in the wireless sensor network protocol space right now with Zigbee, 6LoWPAN, Z-Wave, Bluetooth Low Energy, Active RFID, ISA100, Wireless HART, and a host of other communications protocols. It was the same way back in the wired networking wars with Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, LocalTalk and a host of other communications protocols. The internet as we know it couldn't exist until everyone standardized on ethernet, TCP/IP, RIP/OSPF, SSL, HTTP, HTML, and a few others that I'm leaving out. That basically takes you up the chain from communications medium, communications protocol, networking protocol, routing implementation, security, and application data exchange. From there, applications like web browsers started popping up and further standardization on data exchange such as formatting, display, and APIs occurred. That's when things started to really take off and the technology islands turned into one big-ass continent we know as the internet. But today's internet is mostly designed to be accessed via browsers or GUIs, usually with a person on at least one end, which narrows the application domain.

Now when you start getting into embedded devices accessing the internet and communicating with each other, things get more complicated. Unlike a browser which has a well known/understood profile, each device will support a different set of services, like turning on and off a light, sending a data stream from a sensor, or turning a servo 30.3 degrees. Those devices will need to know what other devices to talk to (service discovery). They'll need to exchange data in a common format, like specifying the sensor data is floating point, 32-bit integer, or an ASCII string. The data exchange will need to happen securely so that some other device can't spoof the real one and mess up the data readings. And there needs to be some type of web service so that the device can be accessed or access another remote device. And this is just at the application layer.

Well, that was a bit of a wordy introduction to my review of Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP, but I wanted to make sure people knew why a book like this needs to exist. The Internet of Things isn't as simple as slapping a TCP/IP stack on to an object. There is a lot of standardization that needs to occur before such a large transformation can happen on the Internet. All of these standardization processes are in progress or finished and can be found on the internet (ironic), mostly via IETF RFCs. However if you have ever read an RFC or a standards document, you'll know that it's as much fun as reading the fine print on your credit card agreement. What Adam and JP have done with their book is took all of those standards documents, boiled them down to their main points, and presented them in a very readable and interesting way with examples and illustrations. They also discuss competing technologies, such as Wi-Fi vs 802.15.4, binary XML vs JSON, REST vs SOAP, etc. And that's just the first section of the book. That alone would have been reason enough for me to pick the book up.

However in the middle section of the book, they go into the actual technology implementation, and although it's more technical, they give very concrete explanations of each of the technologies. They go in-depth from the communications media (802.11, 802.15.4, 802.3), networking protocol (IPv6 and 6LoWPAN), routing (RPL), application protocol (TCP/UDP), and then give a survey of other competing technologies (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, etc). Incidentally, I helped out on the Zigbee part of the book. Just thought you should know...uhhh...a very minor contribution...*sigh*

And finally, the last section of the book talks about how all of this fits into different application areas. They discuss the smart grid, industrial automation, home automation, building automation, health monitoring, and more.

Basically, this book is an impressive piece of work, and the first section alone is worth the price in time saved sifting through standards documents. This is probably the only book that can give a complete and concrete picture of what the real Internet of Things will be. There are very few people I know, quite possibly none, that can discuss this topic from the communications physical layer to the web services so I know that anyone interested in what the Internet of Things actually is will learn something from this book. I certainly did. But most important, it will allow anyone that mentions the term Internet of Things to actually know what they're talking about.