A ranking framework for the selection of IoT cloud platforms using hybrid multi-attribute decision-making method

Purpose The Internet of Things (IoT) cloud platforms provide end-to-end solutions that integrate various capabilities such as application development, device and connectivity management, data storage, data analysis and data visualization. The high use of these platforms results in their huge availability provided by different capabilities. Therefore, choosing the optimal IoT cloud platform to develop IoT applications successfully has become crucial. The key purpose of the present study is to implement a hybrid multi-attribute decision-making approach (MADM) to evaluate and select IoT cloud platforms. Design/methodology/approach The optimal selection of the IoT cloud platforms seems to be dependent on multiple attributes. Hence, the optimal selection of IoT cloud platforms problem is modeled as a MADM problem, and a hybrid approach named neutrosophic fuzzy set-Euclidean taxicab distance-based approach (NFS-ETDBA) is implemented to solve the same. NFS-ETDBA works on the calculation of assessment score for each alternative, i.e. IoT cloud platforms, by combining two different measures: Euclidean and taxicab distance. Findings A case study to illustrate the working of the proposed NFS-ETDBA for optimal selection of IoT cloud platforms is given. The results obtained on the basis of calculated assessment scores depict that “Azure IoT suite” is the most preferable IoT cloud platform, whereas “Salesman IoT cloud” is the least preferable. Originality/value The proposed NFS-ETDBA methodology for the IoT cloud platform selection is implemented for the first time in this field. ETDBA is highly capable of handling the large number of alternatives and the selection attributes involved in any decision-making process. Further, the use of fuzzy set theory (FST) makes it very easy to handle the impreciseness that may occur during the data collection through a questionnaire from a group of experts.