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Internet-of-things is a network of physical object that is collecting and exchanging data through embedded sensors, electronics, software and network connectivity (Triantafyllou, Sarigiannidis, and Lagkas, 2018). Integration is a key component of the IoT as it aids in communicating the collected data to servers where analytics and other operations can be performed. Integration platforms is needed to provide integration between different vertical services being provided (Giudice et al., 2015). However, the development of new services that require the integration of multiple IoT services are faced by fragmentation in IoT service stack. This will open the door to unlock new capabilities and provide horizontal integration amongst services.
Cloud can offer an effective solution for IoT service management and composition as well as for implementing applications and services that exploit the things or the data produced by them (Li et al., 2016). The integration and interoperability with mainstream business software platforms is enhanced and extended by real-time analytics, business intelligence and agent-based autonomous services. Information sharing maybe rewarded through incentives, thus, transforming the internet-of-things from a cost-focused experiment to a revenue-generating infrastructure that enable the trading of enriched information and accelerate business innovation (Vermesan & Freiss, 2014). The cost might also exist due to the changes in the processes (Savić, 2019).
As a developing business technology area, it comes with several challenges as it has different aspects from traditional IT (Pettey, 2016). By year 2030, billions of objects and devices such as vehicles, refrigerators, washing machines, etc... are expected to be connected (Giudice, Campanella, & Dezi, 2015). All objects will be connected to a network which means information and communication systems will be invisibly embedded in the everyday life (Gubbia et al., 2013). To facilitate communication, data flow, device management an abundance of IoT platform solutions that provide connectivity for sensors and actuators to the Internet is being experienced (Mineraud et al., 2016). These platforms must meet the expectations of different players in the IoT ecosystem, including device providers, application developers, and end-users, among others to gain a widespread adoption. (Affia, et al., 2019; Mineraud et al., 2016).
A wide range of IoT integration platforms became recently available. They can support entire development to deployment of IoT applications and systems. The first challenge companies are facing when considering the exploitation of IoT is choosing the suitable IoT platform to serve their business purposes (Andersson and Mattsson, 2015). Several Cloud platforms can be used for IoT applications, varying from simple data collection platforms for amateurs to complex multiple domain semantic integration offerings (Noura, 2019). The IoT platforms are evaluated from the perspective of how widely they cover the defined interoperability requirements of IoT application providers, IoT things providers and IoT Platform providers throughout the lifecycle of their application or service. (Aly et al., 2018).
It is not an easy challenge, technology leaders are required to evaluate and select from a wide range of technologies ranging from open source software to turnkey IoT platforms to cloud based (Janakiram, 2016). This research is an attempt to develop criteria to Identify main selection criteria for IoT (Middleware) integration platform. The purpose of this study is to understand IoT interoperability among different IOT platforms. To achieve this, there is a need to identify core components of IoT platform and review IoT platform integration capabilities which helps in selecting an interoperable IoT platform. Accordingly, this research help to answer the following question: How to achieve interoperability in IoT platforms?