IoT Simulations - Andrea Finardi Iot simulations with Cisco Packet Tracer

4.3 IoT Simulations
This chapter is a guide for the four IoT simulations presented to the student during the
practical classes.
Purpose is to analyze deeper the cases separating the network and IoT layout, giving a
deeper explanation of the purpose of the simulations, presenting all the information
needed to utilize the exercises but also giving suggestion how to expand the exercises
further.
4.3.1 Smart-Home 1
Smart-home 1 was the first of two simulations that covered the domotic area of IoT.
Smart devices were in fact connected to IoT in order to simulate full components inter-
action and capability to remote control the devices. Home owner in fact, after connecting
via browser and pass the authentication, was able to command garage door or the house
ventilation but also check the current status of the alarm system or the level of carbon
dioxide in the garage.
This case also offered the possibility to the students to expand the simulation utilizing
the remote corporate office network in order to build a remote access to the home LAN.
Figure 16 - Cisco Packet Tracer layout of Smart-Home 1 simulation
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Network Layout
This exercise had the simplest setup compared to the other simulations.
Network was logically separated in three areas: home network, ISP Cloud and corporate
office network.
Figure 17
– Smart-Home 1 network topology
As one can see in the Figure 17 above the heart of this simulations was the home net-
work, all IoT devices, home tablet and IoT backend servers were connected to the home
WLAN. Network was simulating a normal home wireless network where every appliance
was connected to a wireless router, router was then connected to a dedicated cable
modem. In the exercise the modem was required as wireless routed was only equipped
with Ethernet ports and ISP connectivity was provided via coaxial cable.
Internet settings of the router were set on default DHCP ISP values, internal WLAN
DHCP was however disabled via the Graphical User Interface (GUI), as local server
connected in the WLAN was functioning as DHCP. Only other settings in the WLAN
router were the home wireless SSID and password.
All wireless devices needed to use same SSID, password and DHCP default settings,
except the local server that used 10-class static IP.
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Static IPs ensured that, even if WLAN router was rebooted, the server IP remained the
same, without having the need to re-configure the devices with a new IoT server IP.
The server, in addition to DHCP services as early mentioned, also provided IoT and DNS
functionalities. IoT features were needed in order to offer backend intelligence to the IoT
simulation and for being able to host the IoT homepage where home user could connect.
DNS service was also required in order to translate the IoT homepage URL into the own
IoT server IP.
The second network provided in the exercise was the ISP cloud. This was an artificial
simulation of relay server that created the communication between two separate inter-
faces, server was setup to connect the coaxial cable from the home modem network to
the Ethernet cable coming from the office router. No further configuration parameters
were allowed in this device.
The corporate office network was a basic setup with a router connected both to the in-
ternet provider and also to a local switch where also two PCs and one server were con-
nected. Router NICs were set with ISP IP in one interface and the LAN IP in the other,
basic RIP protocol was also utilized in the setup to enable connectivity between the two
networks.
The office switch and the office PCs utilized the standard default configuration. Local
server was configured to utilize static IPs and to provide DHCP functionalities within the
office LAN.
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