A policy-aware Service Oriented Architecture for secure machine-to-machine communications

Breakthrough recent advancements in the field of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications impose the necessity to improve the service delivery by enforcing appropriate security rules. Due to the large number of the connected devices, the criticality of the M2M applications (e.g. patient monitoring and operation of critical infrastructures), and the network stability weaknesses, we need to consider and analyse the security aspects and establish a flexible policy-aware Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) competent to deal with these emerging challenges. This paper presents the existing reference models and proposes a novel Secure M2M Architecture (SeMMA) based on ETSI's M2M communication functional architecture enhanced with policy-based management capabilities and SOA capabilities. We explore the policy-based management aspects to improve the security of the M2M components and services and to mitigate the security concerns that arise by evaluating different scenarios. It is shown that incorporating an adaptive policy enforcement of the suitable security controls enables enhanced security capabilities, increased agility, and better service levels in the field of M2M communications.