 | The new applications populating the Future Internet will increasingly rely on the exchange of data between groups of devices, dynamically established according to their profile and habits (e.g., a common interest in same software updates and services). This will definitely challenge traditional group communication solutions that lack the necessary flexibility in group management and do not support effective control policies on involved endpoints (i.e., authorized senders and intended receivers). To address the cited issues, the idea of introducing new disruptive network-layer solutions has emerged from recent literature. Among them, Sociocast has been theorized as an enabler of flexible interactions between groups of devices tied by social relationships. In this paper we start from the concept of Sociocast and propose a solution based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) for its implementation at the network layer in Internet of Things. The performance of Sociocast is studied and compared to methods running at the application layer that provide similar features. Experimental results, achieved through an emulation-based playground, confirm that the Sociocast approach allows for a significant reduction of signaling and data packets circulating in the network with respect to traditional approaches. |
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