Empirical Investigation of IoT Traffic in Smart Environments: Characteristics, Research Gaps and Recommendations

Adopting the Internet of Things (IoT) in multi-functional domains has led to management, operational, and security challenges. As a foundation stone, researchers have invested sincere efforts towards classifying traffic, thereby categorizing the devices. However, the classification solutions are missing the vital attributes of the state-of-the-art high-performance real-time framework. This paper provides the taxonomy of the techno-functional application areas of the IoT characterization. The article also inferences empirically investigated IoT traffic attributes leveraging an Australian dataset collected from 28 IoT devices over six months. Based on the forensics of IoT traffic, the characteristics of IoT-based traffic are listed, which paves the grounds of the security, operational, and management solutions for IoT devices. The paper also details the research gaps in the implemented solutions by exploring additional research dimensions of a trailblazing real-time classification solution, which the researchers often ignore. Lastly, the paper offers recommendations and prospects.