BSI PAS 212:2016

This PAS specifies a protocol whereby any compliant software client can automatically discover data that is stored within any compliant software server, without either the client or server having to be written to have been explicitly compatible with each other.

It applies to the design of services for IoT and the World Wide Web in general, and in particular to the design of applications intended to operate within broad ecosystems such as smart cities, as well as specific industry sectors. It aims to break down the vertically-integrated software silos that have previously existed within the IoT industry.

More specifically it covers the format for representing a catalogue of linked-data resources, annotated with metadata.

It also provides conditional requirements for catalogue access in the following areas:

• catalogue transport;
• security mechanisms to protect access and to prove provenance;
• search functions;
• subscription mechanisms;
• well-known entry-points;
• machine-readable hints to ease usability.

NOTE 1 Clauses 5 to 8 provide conditional requirements, which means that they might not be relevant, but if they are, then they need to be implemented as specified in these clauses.

It does not cover implementation of the linked-data resource services themselves.

This PAS is for use by software engineers for IoT (or web services more generally), who are seeking to:

• write a software interface for a client that does not need to be re-written every time it is used with a new server; and
• write a software interface for a server that does not need to be re-written every time it is used with a new client.

Use of this PAS therefore seeks to solve the current problem that lack of interoperability is preventing the exponential growth in the number and combination of such clients and servers.

This PAS is also for use by commissioners of software projects, who, by recommending compliance to this specification can promote open interoperability between the project parts, and thus avoid vendor lock-in.

This PAS allows and encourages the use of existing ontologies, schemas, etc. by reference.

NOTE 2 Attention is drawn to the importance of adopting a security-minded approach, further details of which can be found in Annex A.