IPSO June Newsletter

First, thank you to the many member companies that joined us at our first IPSO meeting in Europe. We had a very productive meeting in Paris during the first week of April.

I am excited to see us publishing our third newsletter to let everyone know about our exciting upcoming events. We recently held a multi-vendor interoperability event and we are planning for two more in the coming months. We also recently relaunched our website to make it IPv6 capable.

We are looking forward to a number of interesting events, meetings, and speaking opportunities throughout the summer and into the fall.

But now, think IPv6!

This was the day: June 6th 2012 was the official IPv6 launch day and besides the recognition of all the efforts made by the networking industry to reach such a milestone, this day also marks a new turn for the Internet. The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming a reality with and only with IPv6 technologies. I will not debate about the number of devices inter-connected by 2015. Is it one, ten or fifty billion? This does not really matter. The important point is that IPv6 is the only technology that will enable the deployment of such a large number of devices.

* It is the reason why the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is working only on IPv6 for IoT technologies.
* It is the reason why new smart metering infrastructures are deployed worldwide using IPv6.
* It is the reason why LTE was primarily designed to support IPv6.

Think IPv6!

If I had to give advice to the actors of these fast growing and innovative IoT markets, my advice would be: Think IPv6 for the design of your new IoT applications. If your transport infrastructure is not IPv6 ready, numerous ways
exist to tunnel IPv6 traffic over an existing/legacy transport network but applications and end devices must be IPv6 from day one.

Since its creation, the IPSO Alliance has recognized the importance of IPv6 and a number of IPSO webinars and white papers address the opportunities for this new technology. Our website (www.ipso-alliance.org) is currently accessible through IPv6 and will stay like this. Our address is 2607:f740:c::f9b but if your ISP is offering you IPv6 connectivity, you do not have to worry about the
hexadecimal address - your DNS will do the resolution for you.

The Alliance is making important progress on the interoperability front as well. At our latest Interop test event, our members have demonstrated application
level interoperability.

The GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) has designed a stack for the Smart Grid which emphasizes the different levels of interoperability.

This should be our daily focus. Unfortunately, proprietary solutions and so-called standards are still trying to demonstrate how great their non-interoperable designs are.

As an alliance, we should address interoperability for all of the GridWise Technical layers (Syntactic, Network and Basic Connectivity). The way to do it is still undefined. Should we improve our Interoperability tests, should we develop an IPSO profile, should we work with other alliances and forums? This is still to be decided.

Our Alliance is uniquely positioned to influence this nascent industry but this can only be achieved with your help and participation.

Think IPv6 for a better interoperable world.

Patrick Wetterwald
Vice President. IPSO Alliance

Bringing Light to the Internet of Things

By Mike Coop

IPSO Alliance Promoter Member GreenWave Reality is a global innovator in the Smart Home Services market, providing IP-based solutions for Energy Management, Connected Lighting, Electric Vehicles, and Home Monitoring services. The company works with utilities, retail energy providers, and service operators across Europe, Asia, and the United States to enable solutions that increase consumer choice, reduce churn, hasten regulatory compliance, and deliver value throughout the energy network.

Continue Reading...

Paris Member Meeting Summary

By Nick Ashworth and Jan Höller

On April 2-3, the IPSO Alliance held their first European members meeting in Paris, France to recognize the growing support for the Internet of Things by global member companies. We had 45 attendees, representing 30 companies and 9 countries. Of those attending, over half (57%) were first-time

attendees.

The meeting featured reports by the various working group committees, a marcom breakout, and the next steps to further extend the impact of IP for Smart Objects and the IPSO Alliance itself. As IP technology is now mature for Smart Object products and solutions, the importance of interoperability at various levels of the stack is growing. Future focus will be on joint proof of concepts as well as direct member product interoperability. The outcome of the proof of concepts will be non-exclusive endorsement of these solutions and guidelines for implementers. This will be a complement to the already strong focus on marketing IP for Smart Objects. After the conclusion of the members meeting, 6 companies successfully demonstrated application

level interoperability.

Our next member meeting will be held in Orlando, FL during the second week of October. An interop event is being planned for the meeting.

Interop Updates

By Geoff Mulligan

Subsequent to the member meeting in Paris, the IPSO Interop and Smart Energy committees conducted a multi-vendor interoperability event, hosting nine different vendors who were testing multiple different physical media (PHY/MAC) combinations.

Several companies tested implementations of 6LoWPAN over IEEE 802.15.4 and one company demonstrated 6LoWPAN over 802.15.4 and PLC. In order to test interoperable communications, all of the companies worked on implementations of a new IPSO application framework. This application layer data format provides a communication framework for embedded devices to exchange sensor and control messages and is the first start at an application neutral communication structure for machine to machine communications. This new application data format was designed to work over both TCP/HTTP and the new UDP/COAP protocols.

During the multi-day event, companies used the IPSO application framework to show Smart Energy-type real world applications, including one company's new controllable light bulb with integrated wireless IPv6 communications module. Several companies brought implementations based on open source TinyOS and Contiki, another brought an implementation using Java and one company provided a web GUI interface to manage and coordinate all of the various nodes.

Going forward the Interop committee plans to further develop and publish the application framework and to extend the interoperability testing. The next event is planned to coincide with the summer IETF meeting in Vancouver in July and then a subsequent event prior to the next IPSO meeting in October.