Accelerating Multi-Access Edge Cloud and IoT for Smart Nation

November 2019

Winner in the IoT Category

TechnologyExcellence Awards 2019

AbstractThis white paper addresses the opportunity for the acceleration of IoT deployment supportedby Singapore’s first IoT-as-a-Service (IoTaaS) platform developed by SPTel. It also discusses the benefits of integrating IoT with Edge Computing via pervasive hubs around the island and how users can leverage this advantage that is unique to SPTel.

The paper highlights the use cases of IoT supported by Edge Computing, explores the areas where it will benefit organizations and clarifies how SPTel’s network and digital services proposition can help in the development of a Smart Nation.

This white paper will be of value to Architects, IoT Enthusiasts and other decision makers working in the ICT domain looking to deploy new or integrate existing IoT solutions in a wide range of smart city use cases like smart facility management, Industry 4.0, Smart Surveillance and more.

04Introduction

05Chapter 1Edge Computing forEnhanced IoT Performance

07Chapter 2Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service

14Chapter 3Use Cases

18Summary

Contents

Introduction

Recently there has been an increased level of interest in Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing for effective monitoring and control of smart devices anytime, anywhere. However, though there is much positive sentiment around IoT, there remain barriers to entry that deter most organisations from deploying their own.

The cost of implementing IoT is high. Not only must you invest in sensors, you would also have to create or purchase a dashboard to manage devices and analytics. Then comes the question of where to mount your devices, how to connect them and how to secure them against cyber threats. Even if you accomplish all this, you’ll be stuck managing multiple vendors and when things go wrong, there is no single person you can turn to for help.

Even as we struggle to solve these existing issues with IoT deployment, another pressing challenge is upon us. With interest in IoT growing among public, the number of connected devices has increased exponentially and is estimated to reach nearly 30 billion by the end of 2022 according to Ericsson1. As a result, larger volumes of data will need to be processed efficiently for IoT devices to function and respond optimally. This efficient processing of data is even more critical for IoT in a smart nation context because it’s primary purpose

1. https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/internet-of-things-forecast

will be to collect and monitor real time data. Some scenarios include monitoring traffic conditions to respond faster to accidents or remote surveillance for security.

In light of these challenges to IoT deployment, SPTel has developed IoT-as-a-Service to enable agile IoT deployment without the heavy investment and management headaches. With a multi-protocol device management platform, access to pervasive hubs for edge computing and a highly resilient backhaul with true network diversity, SPTel’s IoT-as-a-Service enables customers to work with one partner for:

1) Edge Computing for analysis closer to things, events and people for enhanced IoT performance

2) Faster go to market with no hefty upfront investment on a utility based model

3) Reliable device connectivity on an ultra-low latency network, without the restrictions of data capped SIM cards

4) Application hosting and device management on an open platform

5) Simplified Analytics

6) Peace of mind with end-to-end cyber security capabilities

04

Edge Computing for Enhanced IoT Performance

Edge Computing for EnhancedIoT PerformanceEdge computing has progressed significantly in recent years. It is evolving because of the high demand to move compute processing closer to devices in order to reduce latency and improve efficiency. Edge computing is also a far less expensive route to scalability. This is because analysing data at the edge means IoT devices need only to relay data to their nearest server for the hard lifting required for real-time decision making. This lowers the bandwidth required to relay data and improves network responsiveness for improved performance from IoT devices, allowing companies to expand their computing capacity and optimise their network expenditure. Edge computing can also help users to perform analysis even in areas where IoT devices have insufficient network coverage. IoT edge devices can now accomplish analytics tasks at the Edge, instead of needing to constantly connect to centralized cloud infrastructure for instructions or analysis.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 | 05

Edge Computing for Enhanced IoT Performance | Chapter 1

MEC – Architecture

SPTel’sEdge Computing PlatformSPTel’s Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) platform will therefore be a key component to providing fast computing capabilities to users. Our MEC platform is basically an Edge Platform as a Service (Platform-aaS) that provides container-based computing resources at the edge for customer applications. These Edge Compute nodes are instrumental in hosting diverse IoT use cases like Smart facility management system, industry 4.0, Video analytics etc. which are bandwidth and compute intensive and require a low latency turnaround time.

SPTel’s pervasive hubs around the island enable the deployment of customers’ IoT applications on MECs around the edge locations closer to the data source and point of consumption with efficient

SPTel’s MEC architecture is designed to provide all the necessary functions to allow deployment of multiple “virtual” MEC servers within one physical server which provides an organized computation for all the customer applications. This architecture completely replaces the traditional method of application deployment by installing all the dependencies and libraries into the sever. Our platform just requires a docker image from the customer to go live for production in minutes. With the help of the orchestrator called Kubernetes, the application deployment can be automated, easily scaled up as the data grows , and the user applications and the resources can be managed easily.

The architecture of SPTel’s MEC is shown below:

computing capabilities. Due to the availability of our island wide Edge data centers and coverage by leveraging NBN infrastructure, our customers can service end users efficiently with little physical distance or latency. This is especially valuable for content providers looking to deliver uninterrupted streaming services, video analytics platform providers, smart city solution providers and so on.

With the ability of our wide spread edge locations and corresponding edge servers, SPTel can bring your computing ability near the customer’s locations as a service (Compute-aaS) when needed. With this, customers can not only perform analytics and computing but also store their processed data as and when needed (Storage-aaS).

Virtual Machines (VM)

Patching Upgrades

Maintenance

SDN Platform System Management

MEC-OS

Containerized Applications

System InventoryMonitoring

K8s Abstraction Layer

Kubernetes

VM

MEC

Figure 1: SPTel’s MEC Architecture

06

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service Chapter 2 |

Why SPTel’sIoT as a Service In today’s digital world, industries are moving more and more towards “as-a-service” business models because it makes for faster and more effective deployment. Organisations can avoid hefty upfront investments in technology that they may not be able to maintain, manage and update. Should business strategy change, services can be discontinued without much sunk cost.

Chapter 2

07

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service | Chapter 2

SPTel’s IoT as a Service Platform

Reliable Device Connectivity on an Ultra-low Latency Network

With SPTel’s as a service model, customers no longer need to worry about building their own platform, sourcing for applications and deploying connectivity. Customers can focus on their applications while SPTel takes care of the device management, backbone connectivity, data storage and security. This gives customers a rapid development environment to launch their applications with optimal cost and less time to market.

Deployment of IoT-a-a-S is flexible and fast. We’ve created an end to end Digitalized Service experience for customers complete with their own dashboard where they can place orders and manage all their IoT services and subscriptions. Once the order has been placed, the user’s IoT devices and applications can be provisioned and managed within the platform in minutes based on the requirements.

Ultimately, this “Pay as you go” model will save huge amounts of time, effort and money for the users who would like to use IoT applications.

One of the major concerns about running IoT applications is connectivity. With some devices performing mission critical functions like heart rate monitoring, it is essential that maximum uptime is achieved. That is why a reliable connection that gives you the option of bypassing data caps on SIM cards is important.

SPTel’s fibre network infrastructure, the backhaul that supports our IoT-a-a-S platform, uses unique fibre pathways which are different from other network service providers. This reduces your risk of disruption from outages on networks that utilize shared infrastructure. With our cables being buried deeper underground as well, customers benefit from greater physical protection from cable cuts.

Pairing your device with the right wireless protocol is also important to ensure that data transmission is smooth, with minimal interruptions. This means choosing the protocol that gives you the right range, data bandwidth and capacity to meet your IoT needs. This is why our platform is programmed with a range of wireless protocol options like LoRa, Wi-Fi, and in the near future to host localised 5G mmWave use cases and more so you do not need to settle for second best.

The IoT-as-a-Service platform architecture itself is also designed for greater availability and security to prevent downtime.

08

SPTelNetwork

SPTelIoT Platform

DataCenter 1

MEC

Gateway

App 1

App 2

App 3

App 4

DataCenter 2

InternetGateway

MEC - Multi-Access Edge ComputingAPP - Applications

MECGateway

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service Chapter 2 |

Interpreting the Service Architecture Diagram

IoT as a Service- Architecture SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S is made up of three-layers comprising IoT devices and edge, IoT platform and customer applications. Most critically, for higher availability, the customer application is hosted in 2 SPTel owned data centers. This means that customers enjoy peace of mind knowing their data is in a secure facility, that comes with parallel data storage. By storing data in this manner, there will be no down time should there be any outages in either data center.

The IoT devices and MEC nodes form the access layer where the computation is performed to run complex applications. The second layer provides communication bindings for all the connected IoT devices and exposes service APIs for management, supervision, interoperability, and connectivity to applications. The third layer holds the customer applications which will be stored in our island wide edges and data centers.

Figure 2: SPTel’s IoT as a Service Architecture

09

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service | Chapter 2

Multiprotocol System

Interoperability

At the fast pace that technology is moving, it is important that your IoT applications and platforms can be quickly and easily updated with new protocols, functions and analytics capabilities to support your devices. This is why a strong device hosting and management platform needs to overcome 3 key hurdles:

1. Enabling interoperability

2. Allowing for more applications, deployed easily

3. Simplifying analytics

Application Hosting and Device Management on an Open Platform

Device heterogeneity in IoT poses a challenge to interoperability, limiting the potential and benefits of connecting devices which are diverse in protocols and manufacturers. Solving interoperability is key to enable innovative use cases for IoT. This is why SPTel’s IoT platform is modular in design to allow easy adoption of new standards quickly, maintaining industry relevance and providing subscribers a competitive edge.

SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S platform supports devices from different manufacturers and capabilities, using different IoT protocols and consolidates all the information required to manage IoT devices presented as a single centralised platform. SPTel’s IoT platform accepts various data formats while providing users the ability to define data semantics to facilitate data interoperability.

DeviceInteroperability

IoT as a Service

ProtocolInteroperability

IoT Devices

Service Orchestration

DataSources

InfrastructureServices

ApplicationServer

DomainApplication

IoT CLOUD

Figure 3: SPTel’s Interoperable IoT Platform

10

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service Chapter 2 |

Wide Ranging Applications, Deployed Easily

Simplifying analytics

Library for User Applications

IoT Analytics

SPTel’s IoT platform is not just limited to managing IoT devices, it also serves as a 3rd party Application library offering users a wide range of applications that users can deploy on their MEC devices and start using them instantly in their tenanted environment. This feature gives users an app store like experience where they can manage all their deployed applications as well as subscribe to 3rd party applications in the near future.

The platform provides analytic services that are built for a wide range of analytics use cases such as interactive analysis, real-time analytics, operational analytics etc. To perform data processing and analytics, our data lake management software platform provides users with templates utilizing Apache NiFi for a simple interface to understand data flow and perform efficient processing. Users are free to build their own business logic for data processing using a simple drag and drop tool, which saves time and effort. Also, the integrated reporting features within our platform help our customers analyze their data in a wide range of use cases.

11

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service | Chapter 2

Peace of mind with End-to-End Cyber Security Capabilities

IoT Security

Security is cited as one of the top concerns for IoT developers as well as industry adopters because of issues such as the privacy of personal data, the lack of compatibility, and security breaches2. Hence, IoT security is essential and of utmost importance in application delivery. However, with multiple vendors providing the IoT devices, gateway, network connectivity, cloud platform etc. users will be hard pressed to find a cyber security solution that protects them end-to-end. This results in organisations reviewing their IoT security in silo. The down side of this would be possible blind spots arising from piecemeal security application and increased hassle of managing multiple solutions.

SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S eliminates these problems with Security as a service (Security-aaS) that covers everything from devices to cloud.

For device security, we utilize secure protocols such as TLS to transmit data confidentially ensuring secure delivery to the intended recipient through our secured L2/L3 network. This means only authorized devices can communicate with the platform.

To secure the network, our unique security platform captures network packets from LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi network and all other wireless communications that we cover and senses attacks by applying 3 layers of detection mechanisms i.e., Signature, Heuristics and Anomaly Detection.

At the cloud infrastructure level, we ensure applications are hosted in isolation while providing access to authorized and authenticated users using identity and access management.

Users will benefit from threat alerts once suspicious activity is found and receive recommendations on how to mitigate potential risks and take proactive actions.

2. Security Breaches and Threat Prevention in the Internet of Things, A volume in the Advances in Information Security, Privacy, and Ethics (AISPE) Book Series,2017

12

Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)

Device Authentication Secure Networks

IoT as a Service

IoT Devices IoT Gateway

Access Control

ApplicationIsolation

Authentication & Authorisation

PCAPS

Active ThreatDetection &Protection

Key BasedEncryption

Cert Based Authentication

Secure L2/L3Nerworks

AuthenticatedREST API

Threat &DDOS Protection

Vulnerability &Breach Detection

Data SourcesInfrastructure Services Application Server

DomainApplication

IoT CLOUD

App 1 App 2 App 3

PCAPS/HTTP(S)Sensor data/logs

IntrusionDetection

Security Event Management

Anomaly

Heuristics

Signature

Why SPTel’s IoT as a Service Chapter 2 |

Figure 4: SPTel’s IoT End to End Security Platform

13

Use Cases | Chapter 3

Use CasesWith a solution like IoT-a-a-S the barriers to entry for organisations for IoT deployment can be significantly lowered. We share some potential use cases.

Chapter 3

Smart cities mostly rely on inter-connected devices and sensors to collect data for efficient asset and resource management. The data collected is analysed by domain specific applications for insights that aid decision making for critical functions. For example, accidents and their severity in smart cities can be mitigated through faster incident detection and emergency response with cameras and video analytics. Resource utilisation can also be optimised by monitoring energy and water consumption.

Smart devices can be added to traditional infrastructure to provide more meaningful application and value-added services. By adding IoT sensors to our cloud platform, users can enable more efficient wayfinding from parking a car to finding an empty room in offices, providing services with full visibility of available resources and so on.

Through SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S platform, smart cities can provide an integrated ecosystem where all the needs and services can be met intuitively and efficiently. Some of the core smart city use cases are discussed below.

Smart Cities

People

Fleet Management Smart Cities

Public Safety

Sustainability

Transport Delivery

Medical Food

Figure 5: Potential Smart City Set-up

14

Data CentreFacilitySecurity Environment

Smart Building Management

Smart Locks

IP Camera

Temperature

FireDetection

Resource

LightsAccessControlPolicy

AssetTracking

DataAnalytics

ResourceDashboard

Power

Use Cases Chapter 3 |

SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S can be used for managing building facilities in smart and efficient ways. For our purposes, let’s analyse how it can benefit a Data Center.

Environmental sensors and intelligent power monitoring systems can give users full visibility of their resource utilization with real time reports and alerts through our IoT platform for efficient energy management. By giving business owners an accurate view of environmental data, HVAC and lighting systems can be controlled and optimized for cost savings.

Pre-emptive Data Centre equipment maintenance can also be conducted. With SPTel’s edge computing capabilities, analytics can be done at the edge for real-time results on equipment performance to develop trends and predict equipment failure. This is especially important for data centers as they host and support critical data and functions.

Facility security is also improved with IoT-a-a-S. With it’s edge cloud capabilities, advanced facial recognition can be done at the Edge. Processing

of video, which traditionally would be slow or patchy because of insufficient bandwidth, can now be done quickly. Real-time facial analysis for access control can mean improved responsiveness of security personnel due to faster threat detection. We share more on this on page 17, Video Analytics (Facial Recognition).

As there is an increased level of interest in smart buildings, both from academia, industry, as well as from government agencies, we are closely working with our partners on smart building technologies not limited to smart facility management to reduce the energy use and utility costs of the buildings while guaranteeing comfort to the building occupants. As a result, multiple LoRa sensors measuring temperature, pressure and humidity have been deployed on our partner’s premises to perform environmental monitoring. All the collected data is stored and processed at our cloud database efficiently to provide meaningful insights to the users. These processed data can later be used to develop predictive control algorithms to automate HVAC systems on the buildings for next level, intelligent, building automation.

Smart Facility Management System

Figure 6: Smart Facility Management System

15

Sensor Devices

PLC PLC

Operational Technology (OT)

IoTPlatform

Information Technology (IT)Edge Cloud

Dashboard

Use Cases | Chapter 3

SPTel’s IoT-a-a-S can be used in Industry 4.0 applications to improve production efficiency in manufacturing units. Smart IoT devices can be deployed at the machine level to collect critical data like vibration, temperature, live status etc. with analytics done on our IoT platform for predictive maintenance and corrective actions. Manufacturers can subscribe to SPTel’s edge computing to save cost as the edge and computing node will be managed and maintained by us. Deploying critical applications on SPTel’s edge cloud also gives more flexibility and agility to the

customers than intensive on-premise applications. As a result, users can focus on improving their productivity rather than spending money and effort to maintain the network and cloud infrastructure.

Our Security-aaS can also add to manufacturers’ peace of mind for their applications. All processed data will be decentralized and kept locally behind a firewall in selected geographic locations. Access will be controlled to protect the privacy and secret exfiltration from third parties will provide additional security to the cloud functionality.

Industry 4.0

Figure 7: Industry 4.0 Applications

16

MEC

Face Detection

Data Analytics

Use Cases Chapter 3 |

One of the key applications incorporating IoT and MEC is video analytics for facial recognition. This application requires a significant amount of processing and a large database for image comparison. With the availability of high bandwidth and fast Internet speeds, facial analysis can be processed via the edge cloud with the power of General Processing Units (GPU) for faster results. These kinds of applications will be helpful in providing better security to the end users through video surveillance on their premises especially on remote and coastal areas.

At SPTel we have successfully deployed a remote surveillance system which performs video analytics and facial recognition on our premises.

This setup has been completely deployed on our MEC devices with GPU for analytics at the edge, reducing the reliance on computation at Data Centers. This enables our surveillance cameras to detect multiple faces at the same time without compromising application speed and performance. As users rely more on mobile phones nowadays, we have enhanced the system with a client application that can be installed in mobile devices for easy management. This gives our security staff members the ability to get involved in managing the visitors easily through their hand phones and to provide an efficient surveillance.

Video Analytics(Facial Recognition)

Figure 8: Deploying Facial Analytics at the Edge

17

Summary

Summary

At SPTel, we believe IoT and edge computing are going to be an integral part of the way we live, work and play. As more use cases are generated for IoT, all eyes will turn towards faster and more efficient IoT integration and deployment to increase speed to market for new solutions. As more critical functions are enhanced with IoT, faster responses, lower latency and optimized device performance will become key reasons why edge computing will also gain momentum in upcoming days. That is why we, at SPTel, are committed to providing solutions that incorporate both edge computing and IoT technologies. By providing an end-to-end platform that takes care of sensor management, analytics, security and computing, we hope to place our customers in a better position to accelerate their IoT deployment for a competitive edge.

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Brought to you by:

SPTel’s IoT as a Service is an award winning solution

Contributions by:Mr. Heng Kwee TongHead of Engineering, SPTelHolder of 2 patents in RF Technologies and more than 10 International publications

Dr. Guo NingPrincipal Architect, SPTelHolder of PhD in Optical Communications from NTU, Singapore

Mr. Venkat Subramanian ArumugaperumalIoT Engineer, SPTelExecutive member of The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and Mozilla Representative, Singapore

TechnologyExcellence Awards 2019