Abstract :
Eight core primitives belonging to most distributed computing systems, and in particular, systems with large amounts of data, scalability concerns, heterogeneity concerns, temporal concerns, actors of unknown pedigree and possible nefarious intent, is presented. Primitives allow formalisms, reasoning, simulations, and reliability and security risk-tradeoffs to be formulated and argued. These eight primitives are basic building blocks for a Network of `Things´ (NoT), including the Internet of Things (IoT), an emerging `new´ distributed computing paradigm. They are: sensor, snapshot (time), cluster, aggregator, weight, communication channel, eUtility, and decision A composability model and vocabulary that defines principles common to most, if not all NoTs, is needed. For example, “what is the science, if any, underlying the IoT”? Primitives offer answers by allowing comparisons between one NoT architecture to another. They offer a unifying vocabulary that allows for composition and information exchange among differently purposed networks. And they prove useful towards more subtle concerns, including interoperability, composability, and late-binding of assets that come and go on-the-fly, all of which are large concerns for IoT.
