Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly growing technological domain and the effort that many Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) and alliances are dedicating to it is constantly increasing. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is certainly one of the most active SDOs operating in this broad domain. With the aim of building a comprehensive, interoperable and streamlined IoT stack, several IETF working groups are developing protocols, in multiple technological domains, which are already nowadays very relevant to the IoT. This article gives a concise but comprehensive survey of the IETF efforts in the IoT. We discuss mainstream standardization and research activities, as well as other IETF-connected supporting initiatives provided still in the context of IoT.

The paper has been accepted for publication to IEEE Communications Standards Magazine