A cloud-based farm management system: architecture and implementation

Alexandros Kaloxylos*, Aggelos Groumas, Vassilis Sarris, Lampros Katsikas, Panagis Magdalinos, Eleni Antoniou, Zoi Politopoulou, Sjaak Wolfert, Christopher Brewster, Robert Eigenmann, Carlos Maestre Terol

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recent technological advances have paved the way for developing and offering advanced services for the stakeholders in the agricultural sector. A paradigm shift is underway from proprietary and monolithic tools to Internet-based, cloud hosted, open systems that will enable more effective collaboration between stakeholders. This new paradigm includes the technological support of application developers to create specialized services that will seamlessly interoperate, thus creating a sophisticated and customisable working environment for the end users. We present the implementation of an open architecture that instantiates such an approach, based on a set of domain independent software tools called "generic enablers" that have been developed in the context of the FI-WARE project. The implementation is used to validate a number of innovative concepts for the agricultural sector such as the notion of a services' market place and the system's adaptation to network failures. During the design and implementation phase, the system has been evaluated by end users, offering us valuable feedback. The results of the evaluation process validate the acceptance of such a system and the need of farmers to have access to sophisticated services at affordable prices. A summary of this evaluation process is also presented in this paper.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)168-179
Number of pages12
JournalComputers and Electronics in Agriculture
Volume100
Early online date28 Dec 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2014

Keywords

  • farm management system
  • future Internet
  • generic enablers
  • services' marketplace

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