Skip to content

ISO/IEC 30141

ISO/IEC 30141, Internet of Things (IoT): Reference architecture, gives a common vocabulary and a set of standard views for describing IoT systems. It does not prescribe technologies. Its value is in giving architects, suppliers and customers the same names for the same things, and a checklist of concerns that an IoT design should address. The first edition was published in 2018 and a revised edition in 2024.

What it contains

  • A conceptual model: the main entities in any IoT system (physical entities, IoT devices with sensors and actuators, gateways, services, networks, users) and how they relate.
  • Characteristics: the qualities an IoT system needs, grouped into trustworthiness (security, privacy, safety, reliability, resilience), architecture (modularity, scalability, heterogeneity) and function (accuracy, interoperability, real-time behaviour).
  • Reference models and architecture views: functional, system, communications, information, usage and deployment views, in the style of ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 architecture descriptions.

The domains

The standard groups the parts of an IoT system into domains. The six-domain model from the 2018 edition is the best-known part:

mermaid diagram

Domain Typical contents
Physical entity Buildings, machines, vehicles, environments
Sensing and controlling Sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, gateways, local networks
Application and service Data processing, business logic, analytics, dashboards
Operations and management Device registry, provisioning, updates, monitoring, security management
Resource access and interchange External APIs, data sharing with partners, access control
User People, organisations and systems that use the services

The six domains of the ISO/IEC 30141 reference model.

What belongs in each domain.

Using it

  • As a checklist: walk through each domain and characteristic when reviewing a design. Gaps in operations and management (provisioning, updates, monitoring) are the most common.
  • As a shared vocabulary in tenders and supplier documents, so “gateway” or “platform” means the same to everyone.
  • Alongside other models: it complements the C4 model, which describes one specific system, and fits with security standards such as ETSI EN 303 645 and the IEC 62443 series for industrial systems.

It is a large, abstract document. For most teams, the domain model and the list of characteristics give most of the value; the full views are useful for formal architecture descriptions.

Where next