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International Journal on Communications (IJC) Volume 2 Issue 4, December 2013

The Design and Implementation of

Lightweight RESTful Server Based on IoT
Zesan Wei1, Yahui Zhang2, Bo Cheng2, Junliang Chen3
The State Key Lab of Networking and Switching
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing 100876, China
zesan_wei@163.com
Abstract
In recent years, the technology of Internet of Things and the
technology of Web Service have been developed rapidly.
More and more sensors have been widely used to sense the
surroundings in the field of railway,harbor,aerospace and
heating.Using the technology of Internet of Things and the
technology of Web Service, a new effective solution can be
found for monitoring and controlling in the filed of heating.
Based on B/S architecture, users can have access to the
system, and get information anytime anywhere through a
browser rather than that users use client applications to
access the system based on C/S architecture.With the
support of this system, it is more convienient for users to
access the system for monitoring and controlling some data
in the field of heating.
Keywords
Internet of Things; Monitor and Control in the Industry; Web
Service; Restful

Introduction
With the development of science and technology, the
Internet of Things has been widely used in many fields
and more and more people pay attention to this
emerging area. As known, the concept of Internet of
Things was first presented in 1999. But now more and
more communities agreed the Internet of Things is the
third technological revolution of information industry
in the world.
In the filed of heating,users traditionally access the
system under the use of client applications installed in
computers.In this way, user couldnt have access to
the system without these client applications and it is
not convienient.Using the technology of Web Service
such as Restful, users can easily access the system
through a browser.It is much more convienient for
users than using client applications to access the
system.
The server system mentioned in this article is a new
server system which incorporates the Internet of
128

Things technology and Restful technology. The whole

system contains Data Access Layer, Resource Adapter
Layer and Resource Access Layer. Data Access Layer
provides some interfaces for users to access resources
on the server. When users access the system, Data
Access Layer extracts some parameters from requests,
match some rules and convert them to a data object
service. Resource Adapter Layer uses messages from
the data object service to generate a data package and
write it to the Resource Access Layer. Resource Access
Layer connects with many physical modules which
connect with many sensors. When Resource Access
Layer accepts a data package, it will send a data
package as a response to Resource Adapter Layer.
Resource Adapter Layer accepts the data package
from Resource Access Layer , parses the data package
and transfers the result to Data Access Layer that then
returns the result in a uniform format to users.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: related
work is depicted in section II. Section III presents the
architecture of the restful server system based on
sensors. In section IV, the implementation of the
system is displayed. Conclusion is made in section V.
Related Work
The development of Internet of Things honors long
history. In 1999, Professor Neil Gershenfeld, of MIT,
published his book When Things Start to Think,
where he described the principles of the Internet of
Things, that is: The radio frequency identification
(RFID), infrared sensors, global positioning systems,
laser scanners and other information sensing device,
according to the agreed protocol, to any article
connected to the Internet up to information exchange
and communication, in order to achieve intelligent
identify, locate, track, monitor and manage a network.
On November 17, 2005, in Tunis World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS), the International
Telecommunication Union released the "ITU Internet

International Journal on Communications (IJC) Volume 2 Issue 4, December 2013

Report 2005: Internet of Things", pointing out that the

ubiquitous "Internet of things" communications era
dawns, all the objects from tires to toothbrushes, from
housing to the tissue can be exchanged via the Internet
initiative. In November 2008, IBMs CEO Sam
Palmisano outlined a new agenda for building a
Smarter Planet, and clarified that the Internet of
Things is the future trend. At present, China, USA, EU
and other countries have fully realized the huge
economic benefits of Internet of Things, and they are
all spending heavily in-depth study to explore it.
Using Restful technology, different applications which
run on different machines can exchange data with
each other without additional, specialized software or
hardware.
These
applications
according
to
specifications of Restful can exchange data with each
other regardless of what language, platform and
internal protocol they use. Restful technology is selfdescribing, self-contained network modules and can
perform
specific
business
functions.
Restful
technology is also easy to be deployed, because it is
based on some standard technologies such as XML
and HTTP. Restful technology reduces the cost of the
application interface and provides a general
mechanism for integrating business processes between
several organizations.
REST (representational State Transfer) refers to a set of
architectural constraints and principles. The
application or design which meets these constraints
and principles is Restful.
The most important principle of REST in web
application is that client will exchange data with
server in a non-state situation. Each request from
client to server must contains necessary information so
that server can understand what is the meaning of the
request. In addition, client will not get any
notifications whether the server restarts or not. Finally,
non-status requests can be responded by any available
servers, which is very suitable for deployment in the
cloud computing environment.

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understand other components and dont exchange

data with other components. Through limiting
knowledge system to a single layer, REST can reduce
the complexity of the system and promote the
independence of the lower layer. When the constraints
of REST architecture have been used as a whole, it can
be applied in large client, reducing the delay of data
exchange between client and servers and simplifying
the architecture of the whole system and the
implementations of the client and the server.
There are four ways to parse XML object in Java , that
is, DOM, SAX, DOM4J and JDOM. In this system SAX
is utilized to parse XML object. When SAX parser
based on the event-based model parses a XML object,
a series of events can be triggered. When the parser
discoveries a specified tag, it can activate a callback
method and tell the method that a specified label has
been found. The memory size of requirements for SAX
is usually not very large.
SAX sequentially scans the document. When it scans
the start or the end of a document, or the start or the
end of an element, we can write code to respond to
these events and save data. The advantage of SAX is
low memory consumption, but its disadvantage is
complexity for coding.
The Restful Server System based on Sensors
mentioned in this paper incorporates the Internet of
Things technology and Restful technology, using
Internet of Things technology all kinds of data in
factories can be automatically obtained, while using
Restful technology information can be acquired on
server anytime anywhere through a browser.
Architecture of Lightweight RESTful Server
The Restful Server System is based on IOT contains
Data Access Layer, Resource Adapter Layer and
Resource Access Layer. We can see its architecture
from Figure 1.

On the side of the server, applications and functions

can be divided into different resources. Resource is a
conceptual entity and open to clients. There are many
types of resources such as applications, the record of
database and algorithm. Each resource uses URI
(Universal Resource Identifier) to get a unique address.
While the rest uses standard HTTP methods such as
GET, PUT, POST and DELETE.
Another important principle of REST is hierarchical
system, which means that one component cant

FIGURE 1 THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RESTFUL SERVER

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International Journal on Communications (IJC) Volume 2 Issue 4, December 2013

Data Access Layer

This layer is between users and the platform of service.
Through a browser, users can send request message to
the server. When Data Access Layer of the server
accepts the request from users, it will convert the
message to a uniform format, generate a data object
service according to a series of rules and transfer it to
Resource Adapter Layer. When Data Access Layer
receives the result as a response for Resource Adapter
Layer, it will return the result in a uniform format to
users.

request from a user ,extract the resource identifier and

match rules of data object generation. If the result of
match is true, these messages will be converted to a
data object in XML format and this XML object is
transferred to Resource Adapter Layer. When Data
Access Layer receives the data of resource from
Resource Adapter Layer, it will also convert the result
to a XML object and return it to users. We can see its
details from Figure 2.
Start

Resource Adapter Layer

Resource Adapter Layer provides a condition for the
execution of data object service generated in Data
Access Layer. When Resource Adapter Layer receives
a data object service, it will extract some parameters
from the data object service, and these parameters can
be used to search the resource description table and
interface description table, match the rules of data
protocols and then generate a data package. Through
the interface which connects between resources and
the server system Resource Adapter Layer will write
this package to the resource. When this layer receives
a data package as a response from Resource Access
Layer, it will parse this data package using the rules of
data protocols and return the result that we need to
Data Access Layer.
Resource Access Layer
Resource Access Layer connects with many physical
modules, including many plcs (Programmable Logic
Controller) that connect with many types of sensors
which can sense the physical state of the surrounding
and store their raw data in registers of these plcs.
These plcs produced by different companies may have
different data formats and data protocols. We will
implement different data protocols for different types
of plc to draw these data stored in registers.
Implementation of The RESTful Server
Based on IoT
Data Access Layer
This layer provides many interfaces for users to access
many resources on the server through a browser. All
resources on the server are located by URI (Uniform
Resource Identifier) and then users can have access to
different resources by inputting different URIs. When
users want to access a resource on the server by URI,
Data Access Layer of the server will receive the
130

End

Receive Restful
Request

Get Parameter
From URI

Match Data object

generation rules ?

Publish to Client

False

End

Convert Parameter
and Data to XML

True
Convert to XML
Object

Receive Data from

Resource Adapter
Layer

Transfer to Resource
Adapter Layer

FIGURE 2 DATA FLOW OF DATA ACCESS LAYER

In the process of Data Access Layer, if these

parameters from the request of a user can match rules
of data object generation, it will convert these
parameters to a XML object which includes much
information what we want such as the variable name
of the resource, the id of the resource, the data type of
the resource (float data or digital data), the operation
of the request (read or write), the date of the request
and the time of the request.
Resource Adapter Layer
Resource Adapter Layer provides a condition for the
execution of the XML data object generated in Data
Access Layer. This layer includes three parts which are
resource description table, interface description table
and rules of data protocols. Resource description table
records some information about these resources which
have been accessed to the system. The information
includes some attributes of resources such as name,
value, type of control, type of data, rules of data
protocol resources use. Interface description table
records some information about these interfaces,
through which resources connect with the system. The

International Journal on Communications (IJC) Volume 2 Issue 4, December 2013

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information about the interface includes name, type,

parameters of the interface, availability of the interface
and so on.The rules of data protocols display how the
data of sensors are stored in these registers in physical
modules and how we can send protocol package to
these modules and parse these packages as a response
from these modules.
After parsing the XML data object which is generated
in Data Access Layer, these parameters from the XML
data object will be utilized to search resource
description table and interface description table and
extract interface information and the type of protocol
that resource uses. Then Resource Adapter Layer will
use protocol information to match the rule list of data
protocols. If successful, it will generate a package
according to the description of the data protocol and
write it to the modules through the interface. We can
see the process from Figure 3.

FIGURE 4 DATA FOLW OF RESOURCE ADAPTER LAYER 2

Resource Access Layer

Resource Access Layer displays many physical
modules which have been connected with the system.
These physical modules include many types of sensors
and some plcs. In the production of industry, a large
number of sensors connect with plc through some
wires. These sensors can sense the physical state of the
surrounding such as temperature, humidity, speed of
the wind, pressure and store these raw data in
registers.
The physical module such as plc in Resource Access
Layer receives a package from Resource Adapter
Layer and will send a package as a response to upper
layer. The upper layer will parse this raw package
according to the rule of data protocol and get the value
of the resource. We can see its detail process from
Figure 5.

FIGURE 3 DATA FOLW OF RESOURCE ADAPTER LAYER 1

When Resource Adapter Layer receives a package as a

response from Resource Access Layer, it will parse the
package according to the description of data protocol,
the value of the resource will be obtained and then
transferred to Data Access Layer. We can see the
process from Figure 4.

FIGURE 5 DATA FOLW OF RESOURCE ACCESS LAYER

Conclusions
The development of the Internet of Things has brought
a new way to monitor and control data in the industry.
The development of the RESTful technolygy improves
the efficiency in accessing to resources on the server.
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International Journal on Communications (IJC) Volume 2 Issue 4, December 2013

In this context, we have designed and implemented a

lightweight RESTful Sever System based on IoT using
Internet of Things and RESTful technology. This
system should be much helpful for monitoring data
and ensuring security in industrial processes.

Based on ZigBee Communication [A]. Proceedings of

2009

9th

International

Conference

on

Electronic

Measurement & Instruments (ICEMI2009) Vol.1 [C].

2009
GERSHENFELD, N. When Things Start to Think. Owl Books,

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research was supported by the National Grand

Fundamental Research 973 Program of China under
Grant No. 2011CB302506, 2011CB302704; National Key
Technology Research and Development Program of
China Research on the mobile community cultural
service aggregation supporting technology" (Grant No.
2012BAH94F02); National High-tech R&D Program of
China (863 Program) under Grant No. 2013AA102301;
National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant No. 61001118, 61132001); Program for New
Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No.
NCET-11-0592); Project of New Generation Broad
band Wireless Network under Grant No.
2011ZX03002-002-01.
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