A dependability evaluation tool for the Internet of Things

•It was developed a dependability evaluation tool for IoT applications.•It was assumed that the hardware and the links fail.•The tool support any topology.•It is possible to measure the reliability, availability and criticality of devices/network.•A home automation application was used to validate the tool.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising networking paradigm which immerses objects (cell phones, goods, watches, sensing motes, TVs, etc.) in a worldwide connection. Despite its high degree of applicability, the IoT faces some challenges. One of the most challenging problems is its dependability (reliability and availability), since a device failure might put people in danger or result in financial loss. The lack of a design tool for assessing the dependability of IoT applications at the early planning and design phases prevents system designers from optimizing their decisions so as to minimize the effects of such faults on the network devices. In this paper, we propose a dependability evaluation tool for IoT applications, when hardware faults and permanent link faults are considered.

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