Une ville intelligente peut être considérée comme un système complexe dans lequel les différents acteurs coopèrent afin d’améliorer la zone urbaine, la rendant plus efficace et plus durable. Pour atteindre cet objectif, les technologies de l’information et de la communication et, en particulier l’Internet des Objets, sont appelées à jouer un rôle clé pour la mise en œuvre des solutions innovantes, des services et des applications. Cependant, en regardant l’état actuel de la ville intelligente, la réalisation d’un tel concept est encore loin d’être atteinte; le scénario réel est en effet caractérisé par un niveau élevé de fragmentation en raison de la pléthore de technologies et de dispositifs présents dans une ville. Afin de combler cette lacune, dans cette thèse, l’évolution de l’Internet des objets vers le Cloud of Things (CoT) est démontrée. Pour démontrer ce concept, le système d’exploitation VITAL est introduit. Dans le CoT, et en général dans le contexte Smart City, l’un des défis les plus importants est la découverte de données-sources appropriées aux besoins des utilisateurs. Cette découverte est une opération qui peut être exécutée directement in-network et / ou out-network. Dans cette thèse, les deux processus sont discutés en introduisant deux solutions différentes. En ce qui concerne la découverte in-network, la conception d’une passerelle pour le Cloud of Things est introduite. Cette passerelle est capable de découvrir et de gérer différents objets sur une base sémantique et, d’autre part, d’agir comme point final pour la présentation des données aux utilisateurs, combinant ainsi tous les aspects de cette thèse. / A Smart City can be seen as a complex system in which different actors cooperate in order to improve, the urban area, making it efficient and sustainable. To achieve this goal, the Information and Communication Technologies, and especially the prominent Internet of Things, are called to play a key role for implementing innovative solutions, services, and applications. However, looking at the current status, the realization of the Smart City is still far from being realized; the real scenario is indeed characterized with a high level of fragmentation due to the plethora of technologies and devices present in a city. In order to bridge this gap, in this thesis, the evolution of the Internet of Things towards the Cloud of Things (CoT) is demonstrated. To demonstrate this concept, the VITAL operating system is introduced. Within the CoT, and in general in the Smart City context, one of the most important challenges is the discovery of appropriate data-sources that satisfy user requirements. The discovery is an operation that can be performed directly in-network and/or out-network. In this thesis, both processes are discussed by introducing two different solutions. Going deeply towards an horizontal unification of different data-sources and the need to have processing capabilities closer to the network, in the last part of the dissertation, the design of a gateway for the Cloud of Things is introduced. This gateway is capable to discover and manage different semantic-like things and, on the other hand, to act as end-point for the presentation of data to users, bridging the contributions of this thesis.

Every day, a new publication on information systems highlights about Cloud of Things (CoT) vulnerabilities; in most of these publications, vulnerability is quoted as the most substantial barrier for CoT realization. However, formulating a justifiable appraisement of the actual vulnerability impact on CoT is difficult because in many of these publications, the term security “vulnerability” is stated incorrectly as a threat or the publication does not discuss CoT-specific vulnerabilities. To achieve a well-founded understanding of CoT vulnerabilities, this literature review identifies the major vulnerabilities and their security controls and to identify any gaps for future research. A systematic literature review (SLR) approach using 58 articles is considered for this review. Based on this review, a taxonomy is created to classify the existing CoT vulnerabilities and security controls. This literature review identifies and discusses similarities and differences among various vulnerability issues and solutions. Most reviews previously performed were limited to the threats to the application interface and virtualization level, whereas this SLR thesis expand to the vulnerabilities in connectivity and things level of CoT. This study emphasize the importance of a clear definition of cloud of things vulnerabilities and to facilitate better understanding and assessment of CoT vulnerabilities to build more secure systems.