DINAS: a DIstributed NAming Service for All-IP Wireless Sensor Networks

The Internet of Things requires a naming service that can also be beneficial for searching for services and applications. To avoid the traditional DNS approach in which a DNS server provides mapping of names to IP addresses in its domain, we propose a novel network service called DINAS (DIstributed NAming Service). It is based on three pillars: 1) Bloom filters for creating compact names from node descriptions, 2) distributed caches for storing names within the network, and 3) overlay routing strategies to publish and discover information — not only names — within the network. In this work, we assume ContikiMAC at Layer 2, 6LoWPAN at Layer 2.5, IPv6 and RPL (routing protocol) at Layer 3, and we present a particular UDP-based overlay routing strategy. We evaluate the proposal by Cooja simulations and compare its performance with a centralized naming service at the sink. The results show that DINAS outperforms the centralized solution.