A framework for QoS negotiation in things-as-a-service oriented architectures

The integration of existing heterogeneous vertical M2M systems into a new horizontal platform has been recognized as a key factor to boost the development of the Internet of Things vision. In this scenario, the European project BETaaS (Building the Environment for the Things as a Service) aims at developing a framework to enable integration of different M2M systems exposing physical objects to applications through a novel service-oriented interface, the Things as a Service model. Quality of Service support is a non-functional requirement of paramount importance for applications with stringent requirements which has been included by design in the BETaaS platform. In this paper the negotiation framework adopted in BETaaS to allow Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications to negotiate the required Service Level Agreement is presented. The goal is to expose to applications a standard interface which can be exploited to negotiate the desired QoS selecting one of the service classes defined by the platform.