In the GOEASY context, federation refers to the inter-operation between different platforms (e.g. with IoT platforms, Smart City Platforms and Collective Awareness Platforms) and external actors through a shared communication infrastructure. Federation in GOEASY is more than a technical solution. It allows different stakeholders to work together depending on the context and needs.
The GOEASY project considers the LinkSmart middleware as possible communication backbone for inter-platform communication, and will adopt existing federation techniques and enablers, that have been developed by the ALMANAC project in the area of Smart City / IoT platforms federation, extending the scope of 3rd party platforms to provide interoperability with CAPs and other platforms providing location-based services.
To deal with security and privacy issues linked to federating different platforms and users, GOEASY has initially outlined a Security and Policy Framework with the goal to secure GOEASY components that need to interact with the exterior of the platform. To serve this purpose, the framework manages federation users and decides what level of access a single user is granted while protecting the user’s information and guaranteeing that no one can impersonate a federated user. Additionally, the framework allows developers and platform administrators to create a role-based access control system for their federation, which can be adjusted to the application specific requirements.
During the IoT Week 2018 that was held in Bilbao during June 2018, these topics were discussed by Maurizio Spirito, head of Emerging Trends and Opportunities at ISMB, who participated in the panel “Building IoT Cross-Domain and Cross-Platform Interoperability”.
