Hydra - Middleware for Networked Devices

Information technologies are nowadays spread in almost every area of modern life. Not only the desktop pc or notebook are part of this movement, but also more and more embedded systems, integrated in house automation, cars or even clothes. To improve the value of such embedded devices Hydra aims to build up on these devices an “Internet of Things”.

“Internet of Things” means, that devices are reachable in an easy way over a network by remote applications. Manufactures designing a hydra enabled device have to care about adding the device to the network. For small devices, like sensors, this can be realized using a Hydra proxy. Gateways are responsible to build a connected network even over different physical network types like Ethernet, Bluetooth or Zigbee.

The Hydra project aims to build a middleware to support this kind of peer-to-peer network. It delivers technologies to build virtual devices upon physical hardware description, to develop applications being able to find devices and to communicate with them in a network independent and secure way.

The PC2 is working in the area of storage in this highly dynamic P2P network. The demands in storage are very special in this area. Devices join and leave the network dynamically, often even without disconnecting. Nevertheless data should be reachable in the network and sometimes also locally on devices. Therefore applications need to be location aware in the place data is stored. Therefore if an application needs more storage then the local device has it can access storage on other devices, e.g. a mobile can store downloaded pictures directly on a camera.

Data should also be stored in a robust way, so that no data loss will happen because some devices fail or are no more reachable. Therefore sophisticated replication and synchronization algorithms are needed, which are able to discover and repair failures fast.

The area of security is also very important in Hydra. Data send over the network has to be protected, so that other members of the network cannot change or view the data. But it is also necessary to store the data on the devices in a secure way, so that only privileged users are able to read it. This way a user can use not trusted devices to store even sensible data without having to bother the owner of the device could access his data.