A Holistic Overview of the Internet of Things Ecosystem

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper aims to act as the table of contents does in handbooks; indeed, by reading it the developer can find recently published relevant studies on the concepts underlying the IoT ecosystem. A very relevant topic for today.

As suggestions, I suggest checking the methodology and adapting it to Kitchenham and Petersen's protocol so that the review can be highly replicable. Regarding the content and references are very well explored.

Doubt, in the summarization part, I could not identify the type of application (eg vehicular, industry, agriculture)?

Author Response

Comment 1

You suggested adapting the methodology to Kitchenham and Petersen's protocol so that the review can be highly replicable.

Thanks for this hint. Section 3 has been rewritten completely to take it into account.>

Comment 2

“I could not identify the type of application (eg vehicular, industry, agriculture)?”

As you know perfectly, in mapping studies the analysis stage does not get down to such a level of detail.

Reviewer 2 Report

This a comprehensive and systematic review on the structure and functionalities of IoT systems. It provides valuable insights about how IoT systems are composed and interacted with other computing systems like edge, fog and cloud. 

One of the points to improve this paper is the lack of future research directions and potential research and business opportunities in the concluding part. If were are able to shed light on the whole ecosystem of IoT, we should magnify the research gaps, unanswered and challenging research questions and lacking structural and functional blocks in this system. 

The authors are also encouraged to provide more details in the introduction parts about the evolution of communication and networking technologies and their effect on IoT including 5G, SDN, NFV. Part of realization of IoT in real-world cases owes to application of AI in IoT, specifically ML and RL. 

Author Response

You suggested ways to improve the manuscript. But, your (reasonable) hints come from the assumption that the manuscript was a “systematic review”. In the re-submitted manuscript it is made explicit that the work is a “Systematic Mapping Study” (Lines: 76..81; 84..85).

Moreover, Section 3 has been rewritten completely.

We apologize for such ambiguity in the original submission.

I’m sure you will forgive us for the following sentences (both comes from reference [3], p.44 in the new manuscript) that you know for sure, but that we added to explain why you didn’t find what you were expecting to be in the paper. In particular, that is the reason why we didn’t add what you asked in your comments.

"Systematic Mapping Studies [...] are designed to provide a wide overview of a research area, to establish if research evidence exists on a topic and provide an indication of the quantity of the evidence.".

"The analysis stage of a mapping study is […] unlikely to include in depth analysis techniques such as meta-analysis and narrative synthesis, but totals and summaries."

Comment 2

The authors are also encouraged to provide more details in the introduction parts about the evolution of communication and networking technologies and their effect on IoT including 5G, SDN, NFV.

“SDN” and “NFV” are relevant topics in the IoT domain: you are right. They are not discussed in our paper because of its nature (a Systematic Mapping Study), but reference 63 (in the resubmitted paper) provides lot details about them. The interested reader can find such a paper simply by making a search within our paper using as keywords: SDN or NFV.

Same consideration applies to the 5G topic. It is discussed deeply in references 86 and 124.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is well written and structured, It will be a good help to other researchers too. However, I would like to underline a couple of things.

1. You mention several methods, but I do not see it in the text that which one of them is suitable for IoT systems, and also I would like to suggest to the authors to add a paragraph where they explain all comparative details among them.

2. Regarding the Cloud, Fog and Edge computing is also suggested to explain that how they are related to the methods that you mention and also their application in different scenarios.

Author Response

You made two requests that we couldn’t implement because both hints came from the assumption that the manuscript was a “systematic review”.

In the new version of the manuscript, we clarified that the work is a “Systematic Mapping Study” (Lines: 76..81; 84..85). This was not explicated originally. We apologize for such ambiguity.

Accordingly, Section 3 is new.

As you know perfectly, in mapping studies the analysis stage does not get down to such a level of detail.

"Systematic Mapping Studies [...] are designed to provide a wide overview of a research area, to establish if research evidence exists on a topic and provide an indication of the quantity of the evidence." (reference [3], p.44 in the new manuscript).

That is the reason why we couldn’t implement your comments.