The IPSO Alliance Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List
IPSO
What is the IPSO Alliance and how can it help me?
o The IPSO Alliance is an open group of member companies that are working together to market and educate about using IP as the protocol for sensor and control networks (generically defined as "smart objects").
o By participating you will be able to help promote the concept of embedded IP and will be able to participate in marketing events. Additionally you will be kept informed about standards activities involving IP, Sensor Networks and Smart Objects and can participate in Interoperability Events.
What is a Smart Object?
o Smart objects are small computers with a sensor or actuator and a communication device, embedded in objects such as thermometers, car engines, light switches, and industry machinery. Smart objects enable a wide range of applications in areas such as home automation, building automation, factory monitoring, smart cities, structural health management systems, smart grid and energy management, and transportation.
Will IPSO define or create new protocols?
o The IPSO Alliance will not be defining new protocols. We will be working with International Standards Organizations such as the IETF, ISA, IEC and IEEE and will document and utilize the standards developed by them.
Does the IPSO Alliance sell software (an embedded stack)?
o The Alliance does not sell or recommend software. Many of the Alliance member companies do provide embedded IP stacks and IP software.
Does IPSO support both IPv4 and IPv6?
o IPSO does support IPv4 and IPv6. We recognize the Internet is an IPv4 Internet today and that it is critical to provide interoperability with IPv4. At the same time we also recognize the importance of IPv6 due to many of the available features such as the immense address space, address auto-configuration, and header compressibility.
Does IPSO simplify the deployment of new applications?
o The use of IP in sensor and control networks and with Smart Objects will greatly simplify the development, deployment and maintenance of new applications, by providing a known programming and networking paradigm, a large number of existing protocols, existing tools both for development and for diagnostics.
Will IPSO deal with security?
o In the Use Cases, tutorials, design documents, white papers and demonstrations, IPSO will provide information related to using and securing IP in Smart Objects.
Will IPSO deal with ethical issues?
o Depending on the specific ethical issue and the scope, it is possible that IPSO may deal with issues that are ethically based.
Relations between IPSO and other efforts
How does IPSO relate to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)?
o The IPSO alliance relies on the standards developed by standards organizations such as the IETF. The engineers in the IETF design and document protocols, such as IPv4 and IPv6, UDP, and 6lowpan. The IPSO alliance will provide Use Cases, tutorials, demonstrations promoting the use of these and other open standard protocols. Additionally many of the members of the Alliance participate in the IETF and other standards groups and will work within those groups to track standards efforts for IPSO member companies and to provide a voice from member companies to those standards efforts.
What are 6lowpan and ROLL?
o 6lowpan and ROLL are working groups in the IETF.
o 6lowpan is a working group whose charter is to develop protocols to support IPv6 running over IEEE 802.15.4 low-power radio networks. The first two documents produced by the working group are RFC4919 (a problem statement about using IPv6 with 802.15.4) and RFC4944 (which defines an adaptation layer for network layer protocols over IEEE 802.15.4 and documents how to compress and create headers for using IPv6 over 802.15.4). The working group is now tackling the areas of device and network commissioning, security and other topics to further interoperability around IP-based standards.
o The ROLL working group is focused on defining routing solutions for Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). ROLL is currently defining the requirements for IP routing protocols that can be used in Industrial, Home, Commercial Building and Urban sensor. Additionally, the working group is developing a survey of existing IETF routing protocols to determine the feasibility of utilizing any for these specific applications. ROLL develops routing architecture framework, defines new metrics for LLNs. The Working groups pays a particular attention on security and manageability (self-configuration).
How does IPSO relate to 6lowpan and ROLL?
o The protocols that are developed by 6lowpan and ROLL as well as other IETF working groups and other open standards organizations will be utilized by IPSO to demonstrate the use of IP in these sensor and control networks. Additionally since many of the members of the Alliance participate in the working groups, we will be working closely, providing input and following the development of new standards.
How does IPSO relate to recent wireless protocols (ZigBee, WirelessHART, ISA100)?
o IPSO is promoting the use of IP in Smart Object such as sensors and actuators in control networks. As such, the marketing, education and demonstrations provided and developed by IPSO are complementary to these protocols. The ISA100 standard, for use in industrial wireless networks, uses Internet based protocols developed at the Internet Engineering Task Force and is in strong alignment with the direction and objectives of the IPSO alliance.
How does IPSO relate to IEEE? Specifically IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4?
o The IEEE is an International Standards organization the defines Physical Layer and Media Access Control Layer specifications. Where these protocols are used to interconnect Smart Object using IP, IPSO will document and promote their use.
o As both 802.11 and 802.15.4 are Physical and MAC layer specifications and as both are used for IP based sensor and control networks and can be used in Smart Objects, the IPSO alliance will provide tutorials, design documents and promote the use of these two and other existing and future IEEE specifications.
How does IPSO relate to Bluetooth?
o Bluetooth is a wireless standard for short-distance data transmission. Bluetooth defines mechanisms for transmission of IP packets over a Bluetooth link.
IP
Is embedded IP really IP?
o Yes. Many of the IP protocol stacks developed and available from IPSO members and being deployed and used today are complete and full IP implementations. The devices that are using these stacks are full Internet devices and fully compliant with Internet protocols and yet at the same time are running on batteries and using small 8-bit or 16-bit micro-controllers and communication over low power, low speed RF links.
Isn't it a security problem putting all of these devices on the Internet?
o The Internet Protocol (IP) is secure. The protocols used with IP are secure. An IP-based network can remain an entirely private network if so desired, keeping it entirely out of reach of the Internet. Even when building a private network, the benefits of an IP-based architecture are numerous: leverage of a huge body of existing tools and methods (such as addressing, naming, management, security, to name a few), openness to a wealth of physical and link layer technologies, demonstrated scale and resiliency, openness to a wealth of application layers and ability to support both "end to end" and firewall-based or proxy-based application models. As to Internet-connected networks, the threat models, attack types, and vulnerabilities that can arise in Internet-connected devices are widely understood and robust remedies to each of those have been developed by now. IP and the associated protocols are one of the most widely implemented and tested set of protocols on the earth and have over 30 years of development and testing. These are well understood and widely deployed and are used in some of the most highly sensitive networks. Additionally by using IP, these sensor and control networks can make use of widely available and extremely secure tools and technology to help control and protect access to these Smart Objects. Thus, IP provides the most robust and secure architecture, "proven by fire" in the largest communication network ever built (the Internet). It is now a commonly held view within all leading security circles that "security by obscurity" is a weak and unreliable approach to security, certainly less robust than a well understood, widely exposed and well exercised open architecture such as IP.
Can we have sensors connected to different media talking to each other (wire PLC, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 802.15.4)?
o This is one of the very very strong features of IP. Unlike other protocols which are defined for just a single type of media, IP can run on top of any of these technologies and can provide connectivity between devices that are on two different types of networks. And this can be done without the use of complex gateways, when so desired, although IP also leaves the option of using gateway-based or proxy-based application models (as is the case with the widely used Network Address Translation systems, firewall systems, and web front-end systems on the Internet).
IP software
Can you really run IP on an embedded device?
o The software and stacks available today from IPSO member companies run on embedded 8-bit or 16-bit micro-controllers with as little as 32K of flash and just 4K of RAM, such as micro controllers from Atmel, Freescale Semiconductor, Jennic and TI.
Can you really run IP on a battery operated device?
o The embedded IP stacks developed for use with RF devices such as IEEE 802.15.4 low power radios and using 6lowpan provide an extremely efficient compression capability such that for the most common case the packet overhead for the IP and UDP headers is compressed from 48 bytes down to a minuscule 6 bytes. Additionally since it is possible for these devices to be put to sleep, the IP Smart Objects can run for years on just a couple of AA type batteries and we expect these same lifetimes using smaller (such as coin cell) batteries in the near future.
Are there embedded stacks available today?
o There are over half a dozen embedded IP stacks (including 2 open source) available today.
How small can an IP stack get?
o The current embedded IP stacks are typically between 4 and 20 kilobytes.
