A Cloud-Based and RESTful Internet of Things Platform to Foster Smart Grid Technologies Integration and Re-Usability

Currently, one of the hottest topics in the Internet of Things (IoT) research domain regards the issue to overcome the heterogeneity of proprietary technologies and systems so as to enable the integration of applications and devices developed for different environments in a single interoperable framework. Towards this objective, virtualization is widely used to foster integration and creation of new services and applications. Similar benefits are expected by its application in the smart grid arena. The use of a virtualization middleware is expected to enrich the capabilities and opportunities related to the use of smart grid devices. In this paper, we propose key features for an interoperable, re-usable, elastic and secure smart grid architecture which is cloud-based and relies on REST APIs. To highlight the benefits, a practical case study is presented, where outlined functionalities are implemented in a cloud-based IoT platform. The advantages brought by the proposed middleware in terms of interoperability, re-usability, privacy and elasticity of the underlying infrastructure are discussed.