Service provisioning for the WSN cloud

The current growth in embedded ICT infrastructure, driven by visions such as the "Smart Cities" concept, is leading to the deployment of a wide range of embedded systems in our environment, which motivates the need for a reusable, flexible and manageable Wireless Sensor Network or WSN infrastructure. However, to simplify the system operation and maintenance as well as to reduce costs, WSNs mus become an infrastructure that is capable of providing services to multiple end users concurrently, rather than having to roll out individual infrastructures for specific purposes. Here, we present the concept of a WSN infrastructure as a WSN Cloud, which provides services to multiple application and data collection systems which adheres to the cloud computing paradigm. Each instance of the WSN Cloud (i.e. a specific set of services configured by a particular end user/system) utilises the WSN infrastructure as if it was a unique network provisioned for their specific requirements. This realisation of the WSN Cloud as Network as a Service or NaaS requires the WSN to support a service orientated software architecture allowing other systems to provision the WSN infrastructure for their needs with NaaS allowing multiple systems to use the WSN uniquely and concurrently. The WSN-Service Orchestration Architecture "WSN-SOrA" presented here is a novel approach to orchestrate service provisioning for embedded networked systems, and enables WSNs to act as cloud ready infrastructures that facilitate on-demand provisioning for potentially multiple individual backend systems.