IoT-HC: A novel IoT Architecture for the Hybrid Cloud

In the last few years, the use of Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies is dramatically growing, opening new application possibilities spanning from smart cities to the prevention of natural disasters. A flexible integration of the Cloud and IoT environments allows users and applications to combine the benefits of the two worlds. Specifically, robustness, versatility and high computation power are better supported by the Cloud, while better real-time adaptation and local control are peculiar characteristics of the IoT infrastructure. Even higher flexibility can emerge when the cloud layer combines and integrates a public cloud component, offered by an external provider, and a private cloud, managed internally to the organization, thus giving rise to the so-called hybrid cloud. The integration of a hybrid cloud with an IoT layer opens a wide range of new possibilities and applications but also presents heterogeneity and complexity issues that must be carefully addressed. This paper offers a contribution in this field by presenting a novel three-layered IoT architecture for the Hybrid Cloud, namely IoT-HC, which is devoted to enabling distributed sensing and actuation, controlling IoT networks, elaborating the collected data both at edge and cloud level, and deciding which data has to be sent to private or public cloud components for storage and high-level elaboration.