This interesting paper addresses the nature of and the need for intelligent brokers to support logistics applications related to the Internet of Things (IoT). Brokers serve as a bridge among smart objects as well as to information technology (IT) systems.

The introductory section makes the case for intelligent middleware to address missing IoT capabilities. The second section reviews the state of smart IoT objects together with broker architectures and protocols, and then the third section presents desired broker capabilities for the IoT. The fourth section provides a scenario for applying these ideas in the context of logistics. The last section offers suggestions for further research and development (R&D) to bring together intelligent brokers, the IoT, and logistics. There are 30 appropriate references, but only two figures to illustrate the concepts in the paper.

The main contribution of this paper is to conceptually combine publish-subscribe functionality and smart brokers to provide support for the IoT as it relates to logistics. Although still a work in progress, the ideas presented are worthy of pursuit on a fast track.