ChainAPI

Spencer Russell

Responsive Environments Group

2014-10-23

Vision

• global scale
• not meant to replace low-power protocols
• build on web technologies
• leverage existing infrastructure and talent

• so this is in many ways what is common now
• app servers not speaking same language
• no standard way for them to connect to each other

• layered architecture, less scaling on massive connection loads and keepalive

Link Oriented

• Links represent possible actions the client can take
  • Creating a device
  • Sending a command
• Hypermedia, like the web, MESSY
• Built on json+hal

• Lets take a look back at our high-level architecture

• And now lets focus on the application servers

• But say we have a lot more application servers

• so now we have something that looks a lot like the early-90s web
• now what came along in 1994 to help consumers find what they wanted

• the web is a substrate for innovation, an ecosystem we can grow new services on top of

Security

• admittedly security isn't a focus of my research
• brand-new security schemes scare me

Ontology

• shared vocabulary is necessary for nice querying
• Probably not necessary to tie in to Upper Ontology
• Need vocab for relation types, data types
• HAL gives nice way to tie relations to URLs to identify and describe
• some (esp. search engines) are already using Schema.org data types

Chain API

• 366 devices in the system using a variety of protocols
• 1121 separate sensors
• Over 100,000,000 measurements over about 6 months
• at least 6 applications (2x unity, 2x glass, javascript web, SOOFA)
• common protocols are a lot easier in unique or niche environments

Streaming

Open Source

https://github.com/ssfrr/chain-api

Live

http://chain-api.media.mit.edu