Lightweight data bridge for connecting self-service end-user analytic tools to NGSI-based IoT systems

Abstract

The FIWARE and related projects aim to provide an open, sustainable ecosystem based on public standards and royalty-free that accelerates the development of Smart Solutions. The broker (Orion, Scorpio and Stellio) and additional components, named Generic Enablers (GE), provide means for collecting IoT data and feeding a data layer. The NGSI standard has a structural role in terms of interoperability, thus promoting the development of new GEs. However, this standard is not being adopted in analytic tools. In general, these tools connect to the IoT backend databases, which poses problems regarding data access control management and requires specialised IT support. Thus, it is not well suited for enterprise scenarios like, for instance, smart agriculture or smart industry, in which self-service tools, such as Power BI, Tableau and Qlik, are frequently used.We propose a lightweight connector for data analytic tools and IoT ecosystems based on NGSI-v2/NGSI-LD/NGSI-TSDB. The proposed system provides web services based on JSON and CSV formats that those tools use without applying complex transformations in the data. Thus, non-technical business users can consume IoT data on demand and use all the analytical capabilities of these tools. We tested the system in an educational scenario where dashboards and analytics processes were developed with minimal effort. The system has implemented a mechanism for access control management at the service/tenant level and several querying features. The system is now being implemented in a real public service scenario. In future versions, we intend to improve the system in terms of performance, security and add more query features.