Simulating IoT Cloud systems: A meteorological case study

Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly emerging concept where sensors, actuators and smart devices are often connected to cloud computing systems. Clouds are used in novel scenarios where data produced by large amounts of sensors are processed and often fed back to actuators or smart devices for consumers. Research in IoT Cloud systems addresses questions like how to govern large number of devices. Simulators could help such analysis, but they are usually problematic to be applied in newly emerging domains. In this paper, show how fundamental properties of IoT entities can be represented in a state-of-the-art simulator by implementing a real world meteorological application. We also analyze operating costs of IoT scenarios by introducing a model of pricing schemes of four providers, then compare them by calculating costs of the simulated application. Finally the revealed pricing model is applied in the simulator to enable cost-based investigations of IoT Cloud systems, and the process is exemplified through the meteorological case study.