A semantic pattern for trusted orchestration in IoT edge clouds

Edge cloud architectures provide a layer between centralized clouds and the IoT and sensor space. In this intermediate layer, we find devices of different types that manage the communication with sensors and cloud services, but also process data from sensors locally without access to the cloud. In order to support the flexible creation, placement and usage of data and software resources in this layer, advanced orchestration techniques need to include communication and processing activities. These architectures often stretch cross organizational boundaries, causing trust concerns regarding secure data storage and the management of the identity of sensors and also the origin of data. We present an ontology-based semantic pattern that semantically defines trusted orchestration for edge clouds by linking a trust ontology to an architecture pattern and that allows reasoning about essential trust properties.