Abstract—the enforcement of the smart city operation
requires a manageable infrastructure. The operating system (OS) installed in a computer controls every task the computer carries out and manages system resources. Similarly, i-stack, the smart city OS architecture designed by INESA, deems to support city-big-data-oriented cloud-based applications which governs and interacts with relevant city information infrastructure and terminals (such like the smart lighting infrastructure). It serves as a platform for the connection, communication and cooperation of smart city applications, with feasible, optimal and scalable computation/storage resource scheme operated. In this paper, we demonstrates the architecture, functions and features of i-stack, in particular, we have proposed a Business and Solution Architecture (BSA) of this smart city OS, so that sustainable smart city solutions could be created efficiently and conveniently.
Keywords—smart city; operating system; i-stack; business and solution architecture
I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the smart city related research and projects
have attracted attentions from varies fields all over the world. Different approaches have addressed different issues with different focus. There are high-level discussions on the definition, scope, development trend as well as opportunities and challenges of smart city [1-4], and there are studies that focus on smart city vertical market applications, for example, on the smart street lighting system [5-8]; and there are researches focusing on newly developed technologies like Future Internet (FI) [9-10]. Although there have been some works on the smart city architectures or platforms [9,11-14], to the best of our knowledge, INESA is the first and only company that proposed the concept of smart city OS [15].
As illustrated in Fig.1, the smart city OS has a very similar architecture with a computer OS. The computer OS installed in the computer organizes and controls hardware and software, and it creates the ability for a computer to serve a variety of purposes, to interact with users in more complicated ways, and to keep up with needs that change over time. Now that, a smart city, like a computer, with the city Internet Data Center (IDC) providing the computing/storage capacity in the back-end, while the Internet of Things (IoT) devices providing the sensing/actuating capacity in the front-end, calls for an OS in between to manage the smart city in a more efficient and flexible way. In our previous work [15], we have already proposed such an OS for a smart city and name it INESA
Intelligent Stack(i-stack), to manage all the resources and applications of a smart city.
II. I-STACK: THE SMART CITY OS INESA is a smart-city-solution provider and operator, and
it operates mature industry chain entities involving lighting, security, transportation, buildings, medical, education, consumer electronics and other fields of IoT. In addition, it also operates top class IDC in Shanghai city. i-stack adopts OpenStack as its kernel to support Data Center cloud computing/storage management and the pay-as-you-go business. OpenStack is an open source software for creating private and public clouds [16], and the key functional modules include: Image (Glance), Identify (Keystone), Network (Neutron/Quantum), Compute (Nova), Block Storage (Cinder), Object Storage (Swift) and Dashboard (horizon) etc. More and more companies throughout the world run their businesses on OpenStack to reduce cost and grow their business faster.
As the brain of a smart city, i-stack coordinates all smart city resources, organizes intelligent logics, and manages smart city data. Fig.2 give an abstraction of the operating mechanism of i-stack based on the eight major focused smart city business units in INESA: Smart Transportation, Smart Education, Safe City, Smart Tracing, Smart Government, Smart Water Management, Smart Building and Smart Healthcare. i-stack provides a platform for all the above smart applications to realize elastic computing, elastic storage, data integration, intelligent collaboration and high system reliability etc. Through the effective integration of resources, more and more new smart city applications can be generated efficiently.
Fig. 1. The comparison between computer OS and smart city OS.
2015 IEEE International Conference on Smart City/SocialCom/SustainCom
To support all the features and functions mentioned above, as shown in Fig.3, i-stack consists of four functional modules: the IoT module, the Big Data module, the Cloud Computing module and the Smart City Management module. An Application Programming Interface (API) layer on top of the four functional Modules provides a consistent way for applications to use the resources of the smart city. What’s more, the API layer lets application designers use functions of i-stack without having to directly keep track of all the details inside of the four modules of i-stack. Brief introduction to the four functional modules are as follows:
A. The IoT Module The adoption of embedded systems, mobile devices and
other smart devices enables more and more smart city applications in varies fields. i-stack IOT module provides a platform for smart city applications to connect, communicate and cooperate. i-stack IoT module adapts the Representational State Transfer(REST) [17] standard and Resource Oriented Architectures (ROA) [18]. Based on REST and ROA, all the physical devices are described as resources in IoT module and each resource is a directly accessible distributed component that is handled through a standard, common interface. There are four essential attributes of each resource: name, representation, link and interface. The name of a resource is a unique identification of the resource; resource representation contains useful information about the current state of a resource, and the resource link establish connection to another representation of the same or another resource; the resource interface is a uniform interface for accessing the resource and manipulating its state. With the IoT module, a city becomes smart with the ability to sense and take actions accordingly.
B. The Big Data Module With the rapid growth of city devices, services, functions
and data, the cross-market and cross-function associations grow exponentially. The Big data module of i-stack provides business analysis and big data processing ability, to reduce the data dimension and generate/incubate new business models. Through i-stack Big Data module, large data sharing becomes feasible, and the machine learning capability provides efficient city business information. With the i-stack Big Data module, city becomes smarter with the ability to think, to learn and to remember.
C. The Cloud Computing Module A large number of applications in the smart city require
vast amounts of computing, storage and network resources to support. The i-stack Cloud Computing module provides the function of virtual resources management, dynamic allocation of resources and distributed computing platform support for big data. With the cloud computing module, city resources could be managed and utilized in a more flexible and efficient way.
D. The Smart City Management Module The smart city management module consists of five
functional sub-modules: the Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) sub-module, the Service Registration sub-module, the Rule Management sub-module, the State Detection sub-module and the Data Display sub-module. It provides comprehensive management for all temporal and spatial information collected in the process of the smart city operation. In the meanwhile, it also provides an interface for user management, state and results display and configuration of logical relationships between multiple applications. In addition, it also provides access to the unified database.
Application data and functions can be systematically collaborated through the four different modules of i-stack. i-stack provides a virtually unified management platform to provide an effective and economic management for all smart city infrastructure and devices. Through smart city sensors/actuators, application data could be collected, analyzed, exchanged and collaborated.
III. A BSA OF I-STACK There are city problems to be solved, user requirements to
be met, new business to be created and solutions to be provided. Individual vertical market solutions are the most common approaches. With various existing communication protocols and the management interfaces prevailed individually in a city, both functions and data are mostly isolated, which not only constrains the service feature development collectively, but also complicates the management feasibility, therefore the service cost becomes unaffordable.
However, with its modular design, i-stack provides an ideal platform where smart city solutions as well as new business model could be generated quickly and efficiently.
Fig. 2. The An abstraction of i-stack
Fig. 3. The Architecture of i-stack
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As shown in Fig.4, the BSA consists of 3 layers, (from bottom to top): the smart city infrastructure/resources, i-stack, and smart city applications. In the BSA, i-stack in the middle serves just like the OS in a computer: it manages the smart city infrastructure and resources, and it supports smart city applications. BSA provides an accessible and collaborative operating environment for devices of business interests. The small colored boxes in the smart city application layer, labeled with A\B\C\D\E\F\G|H\I\J\K as in the figure, represent different applications implemented onto the i-stack platform. They provide “building blocks” for any smart city solutions. With i-stack, modern services can be easily applied to end users directly, and new business application can be easily incorporated and developed in a city.
Under this architecture, smart city IDC infrastructure as well as IoT devices could be reused to their maximum potential, while we can integrate different applications to create different solutions to solve different problems and to meet different requirements. As demonstrated in Fig.4, we could generate new business solutions by incorporating needed applications from the big “application-pool”.
The i-stack system opens and extends Restful web services to the community, including INESA and non-INESA applications. i-stack exposes relative APIs to any third party smart city application to be implemented into the i-stack system, and i-stack also requires the third party to expose all relative APIs to i-stack. So that, through the IoT module, i-stack can manage all third-party applications as i-stack resources. The procedure to integrate a new application into the i-stack system is described as followings:
1) Abstract services in a uniform interface as “resources” and use Uniform Resource Identifier (URL) for identifying resources;
2) Establish connectivity and build scalable interaction models on top of this basic network connectivity;
3) Link and/or integrate with the already existing resources to create smart city solutions.
In order to provide an efficient way for applications aggregation, i-stack uses an IF and THEN mode to simplify the user configuration flow as illustrated in Fig. 5. In this way, all
the available resources on i-stack will be described as event resources and action resources based on the context big data and user preference. For example, a camera from an intelligent security system can use a simple REST API ‘PUT /v1/api/devices/<device_id>’ to send event to policy engine.
With simple "IF and THEN" business logic, new business solutions could be achieved through coordinated control of multiple applications deployed on the i-stack system. Fig.5 also illustrates the data flowchart when two applications A and B are integrated to create new business solutions. Whenever there is any change to the sensing devices of application A, a signal will be reported to the i-stack IoT module through the Message Routing. The Policy Engine will perform rule matching and judgment. Once the trigger rule condition, which is preset by the user through Rule management in the Smart City Management module, is met, the server will send an action execution command to the corresponding devices of application B through Message Routing. At the same time, all structural data of IoT devices are stored in the smart city big data base inside of the i-stack Big Data Module, which is based on a distributed architecture, supporting elastic expansion and mass data storage. Analyzed data will be displayed through the data display sub-module in the smart city management module of i-stack.
As a computer OS, such like “Linux” or “Windows”, i-stack also has a desktop as shown in Fig.6, which provides a customized interface for new business and solutions to be generated conveniently and effectively. In the desktop demonstrated in this paper, the five main menus on the left bar include: INESA Inside, Application Market, Data Integration, Application Linkage, and System Management.
Fig. 4. The Business and Solution Architecture of i-stack
Fig. 5. Data flowchart of i-stack
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INESA Inside includes the eight smart city application fields currently focused in INESA, as mentioned before; Application Market provides a platform for application systems outside of INESA; the Data Integration offers the functions of big data storage, mining and analysis; the Application Linkage provides a smart editing channel so that new application and solution could be generated in a more efficient and convenient way; finally, the System Management provides a comprehensive management platform. According to the requirements from different smart city application markets, business solutions could be generated either by integration of INESA’s own technologies with “INESA-Inside” or by integration of technologies outside INESA with “Application Market”.
IV. APPLICATION CASE STUDY We have established a demonstration lab inside of INESA
R&D Center, where, we could “cook” varies “dishes” according to “recipes” based on the application scenarios with the “intergradient” of smart city applications deployed onto the i-stack system. The i-stack ecosystem currently includes the majority of the key smart city applications within INESA, and a few smart city applications outside of INESA. More and more applications are to be incorporated into the system.
In this section, we will introduce a use case which integrates applications from two smart city application systems to create a new application scenario. The two independent systems are from INESA smart lighting system and INESA smart security system (face recognition).
The scenario here is to provide a personal lighting environment for certain assigned person. This scenario could be applied in residency, hotel, offices etc.
To “cook” this specific “dish”, the procedure is very simple as shown in Fig.7. First, we need to login to the i-stack system as shown in the screenshot in Fig. 8.
We can create “events” in the “resource” page as shown in Fig. 9. Here, UID of the camera is needed as the unique ID for the specified device, and the value represents the device state at the time of an event. Here, an event like “face recognition-Mr. S” represents that the camera from the INESA smart security application captures a picture of Mr. S’s face and recognizes Mr. S.
Then, we can create “actions” in the “resource” page as shown in Fig. 10. Execute action is performed through RESTful API. The METHORD, URL as well as BODY are needed parameters. Here, an action like “Turn on lights and set the color Red” means the lamps inside of the lab room to be turned on and the color of the lights to be set to red.
Upon all the defined “events” and “actions”, we can create a new rule simply by selecting and draging an “event” into the “If” session, and an “action” into the “Then” session. As shown in Fig.11.
In our demonstration case here, the rule is set such that, when Mr. S comes into the room, all the lights inside of the room will be turned on and change to his favorite color, red.
Here is how it works: the camera performs real-time face detection inside of the room; once the target figure appears and is detected, the respective test results will be uploaded to the i-stack Big Data module. i-stack will perform rule matching automatically according to the user's specific configuration and take appropriate action. In addition, the state of the camera, as well as the video data will be stored in the i-stack Big Data module. Fig.12 to Fig.14 demonstrate the real application scenarios, where Mr. S comes into the lab room, and the lights in the room are turned on and the color is set to red.
Fig. 6. Desktop of i-stack
Fig. 7. A very simple procedure to create a new solution
Fig. 8. Login to the i-stack system
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This simple use case demonstrates the flexibility, simplicity of the BSA we have introduced in the previous session. More sophisticated solutions could be generated in the same matter to meet business requirements. We have integrated smart security system with smart water management system so that any unusual information from the smart water system will activate the camera near the water supply tank, so that a video will be recorded for immediate action and further reference. We have integrated the smart security system with the display system, so that when a company employee enters the building, the gate will open and his meeting schedule or other useful information will be displayed on the screen or pushed to his mobile devices. We have integrated the smart security system with the smart street lighting system, so that the lighting intensity will adjust according to the traffic volume to enhance safety at the same time save energy.
V. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK In this paper, we have introduced the INESA smart city OS
i-stack, and proposed a BSA based on i-stack. i-stack glues city operation business data/functions, business development, and city devices all together to facilitate effective and economic smart city business development. The use case provided in this paper further demonstrates that with the BSA of i-stack we can generate smart city solutions in a more convenient and efficient way. With more and more applications implemented into i-stack system, more “building blocks” will enable us to generate more interesting and innovative business solutions with less effort and lower cost.
The development and perfection of the BSA as well as i-
Fig. 11. Create a new rule
Fig. 9. Create events.
Fig. 10. Create actions
Fig. 12. Mr. S comes into the demo lab
Fig. 13. The lights are turned on and set to the color red
Fig. 14. The video is saved into the i-stack database module
Fig. 15. System management
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stack is still an ongoing effort. More functional blocks will be added to enhance more business functions. For example, i-stack will provide common modules such as maps, big data analysis, visual big data tool, etc. to help the development of new SaaS based on i-stack. It will lower the Research and Development (R&D) cost, shorten the R&D cycle and increase the competitiveness of the product.
Ultimately, the BSA will provide a set of user friendly smart city business development kits, offering a lucrative business incubation and practice platform, to enable and promote the enterprise partnership.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by INESA i-stack project and
INESA smart lighting system project.
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