Building Blocks

Having discussed the Plan/Build/Run perspective of the IoT Solution Lifecycle, we would now like to introduce what we call the IoT Building Blocks. In essence, these are formal definitions of some of the artifact types that we have already presented as part of the Plan/Build/Run perspective.

The first building block is named IoT Project Dimensions. These are a precursor of formal project requirements. Project dimensions are used for project self-assessment, project comparisons, architecture and technology selection, and so on.

The next building block consists of the IoT Architecture Blueprints. Building on existing architecture blueprints (such as service-oriented architecture), these add new architectural perspectives necessary for IoT projects and provide a superstructure for integrating the various architectural perspectives that are required.

Thirdly, the IoT Technology Profiles identify and describe the most important technologies usually required for IoT projects. They leverage IoT architecture perspectives to describe where these different technologies fit into the overall IoT architecture, and link back to the project dimensions in order to support technology selection.

Finally, the IoT Project DB is an initiative that aims to record IoT case studies in a structured way. It uses the project dimensions to capture the essence of the different projects, make them comparable, and learn from each individual project.