An Architectural Design for Cloud of Things

In recent times the world has seen an exponential rise in the number of devices connected to the internet. This widespread expansion of the internet and growth in the number of interconnected devices has lead to the rise of many new age technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) being one of them allows devices to communicate with one another that are connected through the internet. It provides a new way of looking towards pervasive computing wherein "things" be it sensors, embedded devices, actuators or humans interact with one another. But currently IoT is facing a number of challenges related to scalability, interoperability, storage capacity, processing power and security which all act as a deterrent for its practical implementation. Cloud computing, the buzzword of the IT industry, suits best to handle all these challenges, thus leading towards the integration of cloud and IoT. In this paper, we present a layered architecture for Cloud of Things, i.e. the amalgamation of cloud computing and internet of things. The architecture provides a scalable approach for IoT as it allows dynamic addition of nnumber of "things". Moreover, the architecture allows the end users to host their applications onto the cloud and access IoT systems remotely. Towards the end, the paper discusses a use case that proves the correctness of the proposed architecture.