Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies the interoperability framework of edge computing gateways and provides edge computing gateways with transport interoperability rules, semantic interoperability rules, syntactic interoperability rules, and behavioural interoperability rules. This document defines the basic requirements for edge computing gateways to support interoperability, including management requirements, data requirements, edge-cloud collaboration requirements, and security requirements.

Purpose

Gateways are edge computing entities that connect one or more adjacent networks and edge devices
on those networks to each other or to one or more access networks. The collaboration between
edge computing gateways can enable entities of edge computing systems to exchange information
and use information with each other in an efficient way, further improving the efficiency of edge-
cloud collaboration and Internet of Things (IoT) application deployment. Therefore, the connectivity
and interoperability between edge computing gateways are very important.

Through investigation, it is found that the collaboration and interoperability between edge computing
gateways have become the mainstream and application hotspot. The connectivity and
interoperability between edge computing gateways are very important, which can provide edge
collaboration for the IoT system. At present, a series of standards in the field of the IoT only solve
the problems related to the communication interoperability between entities of the IoT system,
between external and border gateways, and between gateways and clouds. They focus on transport,
semantic, and syntactic interoperability. However, for the interoperability framework between edge
computing gateways, the transport, semantic, syntactic, and behavioural interoperability rules, and
basic requirements are not standardized.

The importance of the “IoT edge computing Gateway Interoperability Framework” standard is
reflected in the fact that starting from the edge computing gateway collaboration interface, it
provides a complete collaboration framework for the interoperability between edge computing
gateways, and realizes an ecosystem of plug-and-play components, to unify the operational
capabilities of edge computing gateways and accelerate the deployment of IoT applications.
The following are the requirements to be considered for the collaboration framework and
interoperability between edge computing gateways:

 Transport interoperability rules between edge computing gateways.

 Semantic interoperability rules between edge computing gateways.

 Syntactic interoperability rules between edge computing gateways.

 Behavioural interoperability rules between edge computing gateways.

 Management requirements: data collection, parameter configuration, edge computing gateway
control, virtual device creation, and other management operations.

 Data requirements: data storage and access, edge computing gateway operation, micro-
service registration and log table and configuration, and other functions.

 Edge-cloud collaboration requirements: interoperability of rule engines, interoperability
between cloud applications and edge computing gateways, and interoperability between
microservices and edge computing gateways.

 Security requirements: security guarantee of edge computing gateways interoperability.

Considering these factors, this standard proposes a complete interoperability framework
independent of the edge gateway/edge server hardware and operating system, to better
regulate the interoperability technology between edge computing gateways.

The collaboration framework and interface for interoperability of edge computing gateways given in
this standard follow the same standard for system design, which helps to adopt unified standard
terms and concepts between different edge computing gateways, unify the operation capability of
edge computing gateways, and help improve the deployment capability of IoT applications.