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Based upon the fundamental nature of cloud, it is capable to store and handle huge amounts of information from various devices of an ecosystem. At the same time where there are multiple and heterogenous devices in an ecosystem that acquire huge amounts of data, it becomes a difficult task for identifying as well as keeping track of all IoT device from where associated and corresponding data are collected. Computing capability of cloud in a virtual and unlimited processing scenario can handle such huge data processing requirements.

Considering an IoT environment, the sensing devices keep on acquiring the sensor data and temporarily store them before processing in a near real time environment. In this condition limited storage capability poses as a hindrance for data storage. At the same time processing of huge amounts of data in a near real time environment is a challenge for such resource limited IoT devices. At this point characteristics of unlimited computing power of Cloud come to play. Similarly, in a huge IoT eco system some of the sensing devices may not always be on active use. Hence malicious users may exploit them for intrusion to the system security. Hence the identity of the IoT devices is having equal importance as that of the legitimate users of the system.

For effective cloud implementation essential actors play their designated roles for IoT, as depicted in Figure 3.1. Details of their roles considered for each actor are listed below.

1 (i) Things or IoT devices: This is used to collect and transmit data using various sensors for further processing.

2 (ii) Processing node: This solves the purpose of processing input as well as output data acquired by things or devices.

3 (iii) Trans-receiver: This sends or receives various instructions and other associated commands from the processing node or the devices.

4 (iv) Actuator: This is used to initiate or trigger a thing or device for performing a specified assigned task by processing the input data.

Figure 3.1 Actors of an IoT system.

The respective roles played by things or devices are generally reflected as incorporating themselves to cloud. Following such a structured approach, devices of the IoT ecosystem would be able to authenticate themselves to the cloud and also be able to process the acquired data in the desired manner with best utilization of cloud infrastructure. In the similar manner, receiver node of IoT network would also require necessary authentication method for obtaining authorization signifying as legitimate receiving entity. Considering data for being hosted in the cloud, establishing access controls as well as de-assigning users and IoT devices which might have been redundant or changed or no longer in use is a crucial thing for consideration. Figure 3.2 represents a generalized architecture of IoT Cloud. Further details on the same would be considered in the next section covering details on IAM Related Developments framework for the IoT cloud.

Figure 3.2 IoT Cloud system architecture.