A RESTful Sensor Data Back-end for the Internet of Things

As rapidly increasing amounts of smart communicating objects with sensing capabilities are generating raw measurement and observation data, scalable back-ends are needed to collect, store, marshal and process that influx of machine-generated data into actionable information. The data constantly flowing out from these embedded devices is very periodic and structured in nature, referred to as machine-generated data, beginning with a timestamp of some sort and then consisting of designated fields, such as measurement values, ranges and tags. Furthermore, as wireless sensing devices are in many cases battery operated and resource constrained, a mode of operation can be assumed where the device transmits measurement data at specific intervals between which it preserves power by sleeping or idling. This is only one of the reasons why a RESTful approach that has been more commonly associated with the World Wide Web, could be appropriate when dealing with the challenges brought forth by the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. In this paper, initial findings concerning a proof-of-concept back-end implementation are presented in addition to discussing the benefits and technologies related to a RESTful approach in building a scalable sensor data back-end for the Internet of Things.