The document summarizes an F-Interop meetup in London about improving IoT interoperability. It discusses the challenges of interoperability testing, including the barriers faced by SMEs. It then describes the F-Interop project, which is developing online remote testing tools to help address these challenges. The meetup covered the F-Interop platform roles and capabilities, supported protocols, and an upcoming open call for new testing tools and interoperability tests.

1. 1 - F-Interop Meetup, London
F-Interop/Digital Catapult
Interoperability
Meetup
London, July 18th
Michele Nati,
Lead Technologist Personal Data and Trust
Digital Catapult, London
@michelenati
michele.nati@digicatapult.org.uk

2. 2 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The Problem

3. 3 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The Opportunity
● 60% of the IoT value is currently hindered by lack of
interoperability
¢ Mckinsey Report: http://tinyurl.com/jqpymqu

4. 4 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The Challenges
● Interoperability requires tests, validation and
certification
¢ Conformance
■ Test against reference implementations
¢ Interoperability
■ Test against other vendor implementations
¢ Performance
■ How protocols can be improved and scale?

5. 5 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The Barriers
● SMEs are driven by time-to-market
● Standards are driven by large organizations
¢ If not open, membership might be otherwise
expensive
● Tests require physical meetings and complex
logistics
¢ Plugfest
¢ Managing confidentiality of information
● Certification process might be long and costly

6. 6 - F-Interop Meetup, London
F-Interop Project
● EU H2020 F-Interop project is researching and
developing online remote interoperability and
performance test tools for emerging IoT-related
technologies
● It aims to:
¢ Support researchers communities, SMEs involved
¢ Integrating and extending several European testbeds
¢ Researching and developing online testing tools for
IoT
¢ Developing online certification and labelling
mechanisms

7. 7 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The Testing Life Cycle
● Test Description (TD)
¢ Describe the test scenario, any language
● Test Script (TS)
¢ Set of actions to implement the scenario
¢ Exchange of information between IUTs
(interoperability) and IUT and test system
(conformance)
● Test Analysis (TA)
¢ Analyze, compare messages, generate verdict (pass
or fail)

8. 8 - F-Interop Meetup, London
F-Interop Current Base Platform

9. 9 - F-Interop Meetup, London
The F-Interop Platform Roles
● Testbed owner
¢ Who integrates a testing facilities with the F-Interop
platform (more devices, more infrastructure, etc)
● Platform contributor
¢ Who provides tools for supporting the testing life
cycle of supported protocols or new ones
● Platform user
¢ Who uses the platform and provides new TD, TS, TA
9

10. 10 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Supported Protocols
● 6LoWPAN and RPL,
● 6LoWPAN and supported functionalities
● 6TiSCH
● OneM2M
● Web of Things (partially)
● ….

11. 11 - F-Interop Meetup, London
“Currently” Federated Testbeds
Capabilities
● Fed4FIRE (http://www.fed4fire.eu/testbeds/)
federates 24 FIRE+ testbeds, bringing together cloud,
IoT, wireless, wireless mobile, LTE, cognitive radio, 5G,
openflow, SDN, NFV and network emulation
technologies
● OneLab (https://onelab.eu/) federates testbeds for the
future Internet, including IoT, cognitive radio, wireless
and overlay network technologies
● IoT lab9 (http://www.iotlab.eu/) federates crowd
sourcing and crowd sensing testbeds, including smart
campus, smart building and smart office testbed (low
end IoT device, sensor platforms)

12. 12 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Open Call Categories
§ New testing tools to extend capabilities of F-Interop
§ New tests designs to test interoperability & other
measures
§ SME device Interop tests to test F-Interop platform
§ Plugtests to conduct 3 remote online plugtest events

13. 13 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Supported Activities & Budget
List of Categories Grants Award
New F-Interop tools extensions 3 100 000
New interop test design and implementation 3 60 000
Plugtests 3 10 000
SME devices F-Interop tests and report 10 10 000

14. 14 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Important Dates
Formally launch Open
Call & open the
application process
Open Call
Starts
July, 31st
… 2016 … 2017~~
Close the application
process
Delivery of
plugtest
events
Jan, 25th
Conduct
evaluations &
select 3rd parties
April, 26th Aug, 30th
Commence
experiments/
projects
May
… 2018
~~ Review 1st
release of tools
& tests projects
Projects
kick off
AprilFebruary
Results
announcement
…

15. 15 - F-Interop Meetup, London
“Possible” Open Call tools and
communities
§ Tools:
§ Specific protocols tools, such as: tools to emulate client and server protocol functionalities; visualization
tools; remote communications tools; data security and confidentiality handling; certification and
compliance issuance tools; network analyzer and emulation tools
§ HW tools: agent implementation under test energy consumption measurement board, additional HW for
timestamping functionalities for low-end devices
§ Protocols:
§ UNB LPWAN (LoRa, N-WAVE, Sigfox), IPv6, OMA LWM2M, 5G IoT, Hypercat, BLE
§ Test descriptions:
§ For all new protocols
§ For existing ones: IPVv6, 6LoWPAN and RPL, 6LoWPAN and supported functionalities, Web of Things
§ Communities:
§ Hypercat, Web of Things (direct involvement to generate more test descriptions), LoRA Alliance, BLE,
OMA, 5G

16. 16 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Workshop Structure
● Choose a group/table
¢ Based on the interoperability level you are interested/
operating
¢ Based on the how open/close is the standards your
are involved
● Participatory activities
¢ Three rounds
● Wrap up
16

17. 17 - F-Interop Meetup, London
First Round – Basics – 15 min
● List protocols and communities you know (per level)
– 5 min
● Discuss the following and provide an answer for
your group – 10 min
¢ What is your definition of interoperability?
¢ Do you think interoperability is needed?
● Let’s rearrange ourselves
¢ if you think you don’t need interoperability move to
another table

18. 18 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Second Round – Benefits vs Barriers – 10
min
● List benefits of interoperability
¢ Per level? In general?
● List barriers for interoperability
¢ Per level? In general?

19. 19 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Third Round – Challenges – 15 min
● Choose a role:
¢ Testbed owner, contributor, user
● Answer the following:
¢ Tools:
■ What tools you should provide?
■ What tools you would need?
¢ Business model:
■ What business model you see for your tools?

20. 20 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Final step
● Any questions?
● Please take few minutes (3) to complete this on-line
survey
¢ http://tinyurl.com/jeko2zz
● Be a champion, share the open call info within your
communities:
¢ http://www.f-interop.eu/index.php/open-call
¢ Tweet @michelenati, @digicatapult, @finterop

21. 21 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Looking for more info?
● Website: http://www.f-interop.eu/index.php/open-call
● Email: maria.prokopi@digicatapult.org.uk,
michele.nati@digicatapult.org.uk
● Interoperability blog post:
http://tinyurl.com/zmjvauh - please comment with
your view
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22. 22 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Just one more step
● Look to the wall:
¢ Cheer yourself for what we develop
¢ Discuss and network, find partners for possible
projects

23. 23 - F-Interop Meetup, London
Thank you