  Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems are becoming increasingly complex,
heterogeneous and pervasive, integrating a variety of physical devices and
virtual services that are spread across architecture layers (cloud, fog, edge)
using different connection types. As such, research and design of such systems
have proven to be challenging. Despite the influx in IoT research and the
significant benefits of simulation-based approaches in supporting research,
there is a general lack of appropriate modelling and simulation platforms to
create a detailed representation of end-to-end IoT services, i.e. from the
underlying IoT nodes to the application layer in the cloud along with the
underlying networking infrastructure. To aid researchers and practitioners in
overcoming these challenges, we propose IoTNetSim, a novel self-contained
extendable platform for modelling and simulation of end-to-end IoT services.
The platform supports modelling heterogeneous IoT nodes (sensors, actuators,
gateways, etc.) with their fine-grained details (mobility, energy profile,
etc.), as well as different models of application logic and network
connectivity. The proposed work is distinct from the current literature, being
an all-in-one tool for end-to-end IoT services with a multi-layered
architecture that allows modelling IoT systems with different structures. We
experimentally validate and evaluate our IoTNetSim implementation using two
very large-scale real-world cases from the natural environment and disaster
monitoring IoT domains.
