Factors for effective BIM governance

With increasing complexity of construction projects, a collaborative environment becomes essential to ensure effective communication during the project lifecycle. Conventional team collaboration raises issues such as the lack of trust; uncertainties regarding ownership and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); miscommunication; and cultural differences, among others. Additional issues can arise in relation to the generated data, including data loss, data inconsistency, errors, and liability for wrong or incomplete data. Furthermore, There is a shortage of studies that investigate collaboration practices, data management, and governance issues from a socio-technical perspective. This study investigates the development of a BIM governance framework (G-BIM) with support of Cloud technologies, identifying effectiveness factors that guarantee successful collaboration. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with informed BIM experts in the UK, with the aim of: (i) discovering current trends in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and team collaboration during construction projects; (ii) exploring barriers to BIM adoption; (iii) exploring the role of BIM-related standards; (iv) consulting BIM experts to develop a Cloud-based BIM governance solution to tackle team collaboration on BIM-based projects; and (v) investigating the role of Cloud in supporting BIM governance research and development. The findings reveal several BIM adoption barriers and issues directly influencing team collaboration. The key findings led to the development of a BIM governance framework (G-BIM). The purpose of the G-BIM framework is to present and summarise effective factors resulting in successful governance and a collaborative BIM approach, to support the future development of a Cloud-based BIM governance platform. The G-BIM framework comprises three main components: (i) actors and team, (ii) data management and ICT, and (iii) processes and contracts. Furthermore, the study reveals the high potential of Cloud technologies to advance current BIM governance solutions, because of its performance capabilities, accessibility, storage, and scalability

Cloud-based BIM governance platform requirements and specifications: software engineering approach using BPMN and UML

Utilization of cloud technologies has recently attained a profile in building information modeling (BIM). Many studies have investigated the potential role of cloud in facilitating the use of BIM in the construction domain. In addition, recent studies have focused on the role of cloud in facilitating team collaboration across a building’s lifecycle by applying a BIM governance model. The lack of a suitable means for the governance of collaboration and for the access and archival of data has been cited as the key barrier for the widespread adoption of collaborative BIM environments. This study, therefore, investigates the requirements for BIM governance and develops specifications for a cloud-based BIM governance platform (GovernBIM). The study also uses findings from wide consultation in combination with software engineering approaches using business process model notation (BPMN) and unified modeling language (UML) to define the platform’s requirements and specifications. This platform also aims to provide a computerized solution for overall BIM governance solution to facilitate team collaboration and mange generated BIM data during a project’s lifecycle. This ensures that data is consistent, available, and hosted in a scalable storage environment with high performance computing capabilities. The results from this study (1) define functional, nonfunctional, and domain-specific requirements for developing a GovernBIM platform; (2) develop a set of BPMN diagrams to describe the internal and external business procedures of the GovernBIM platform lifecycle for setting, configuring, managing, and using a GovernBIM platform; (3) evaluate several fundamental UML use cases for the adoption of the GovernBIM platform; (4) present a core BIM governance model (UML class diagram) to present the internal structure of the GovernBIM platform; and (5) provide a well-structured, cloud-based architecture to develop the GovernBIM platform for practical implementation. Read More: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CP.1943-5487.000053

Time-varying Resilient Virtual Networking Mapping for Multi-location Cloud Data Centers

Abstract In the currently dominant cloud computing paradigm, applications are being served in data centers (DCs), which are connected to high capacity optical networks. For bandwidth and consequently cost efficiency reasons, in both DC and optical network domains, virtualization of the physical hardware is exploited. In a DC, it means that multiple so-called virtual machines (VMs) are being hosted on the same physical server. Similarly, the network is partitioned into separate virtual networks, thus providing isolation between distinct virtual network operators (VNOs). Thus, the problem of virtual network mapping arises: how to decide which physical resources to allocate for a particular virtual network? In this thesis, we study that problem in the context of cloud computing with multiple DC sites. This introduces additional flexibility, due to the anycast routing principle: we have the freedom to decide at what particular DC location to serve a particular application. We can exploit this choice to minimize the required resources when solving the virtual network mapping problem. This thesis solves a resilient virtual network mapping problem that optimally decides on the mapping of both network and data center resources, considering time-varying traffic conditions and protecting against possible failures of both network and DC resources. We consider the so-called VNO resilience scheme: rerouting under failure conditions is provided in the virtual network layer. To minimize physical resource capacity requirements, we allow reuse of both network and DC resources: we can reuse the same resources for the rerouting under failure scenarios that are assumed not to occur simultaneously. Since we also protect against DC failures, we allocate backup DC resources, and account for synchronization between primary and backup DCs. To deal with the time variations in the volume and geographical pattern of the application traffic, we investigate the potential benefits (in terms iii of overall bandwidth requirements) of reconfiguring the virtual network mapping from one time period to the next. We provide models with good scalability, and investigate different scenarios to check whether it is worth to change routing for service requirement between time periods. The results come up with our experiments show that the benefits for rerouting is very limited. Keywords: Cloud Computing, Optical Networks, Virtualization, Anycast, VNO resilienc

Towards facilitating team collaboration during construction project via the development of cloud-based BIM governance solution

Construction projects involve multi-discipline, multi-actor collaboration, and during their lifecycle, enormous amounts of data are generated. This data is often sensitive, raising major concerns related to access rights, ownership, intellectual property (IP) and secu- rity. Thus, dealing with this information raises several issues, such as data inconsistency, different versions of data, data loss etc. Therefore, the collaborative Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach has recently been considered a useful contributory technique to minimise the complexity of team collaboration during construction projects. Further- more, it has been argued that there is a role for Cloud technology in facilitating team collaboration across a building's lifecycle, by applying the ideologies of BIM governance. Therefore, this study investigates and seeks to develop a BIM governance solution util- ising a Cloud infrastructure. The study employed two research approaches: the first being a wide consultation with key BIM experts taking the form of: (i) a comprehensive questionnaire; followed by (ii) several semi-structured interviews. The second approach was an iterative software engineering approach including: (i) Software Modelling, using Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) and Unifed Modelling Language (UML), and (ii) Software Prototype Development. The fndings reveal several remaining barriers to BIM adoption, including Information Communication Technology (ICT) and collabora- tion issues; therefore highlighting an urgent need to develop a BIM governance solution underpinned by Cloud technology, to tackle these barriers and issues. The key fndings from this research led to: (a) the development of a BIM governance framework (G-BIM); (b) defnition of functional, non-functional, and domain specific requirements for develop- ing a Cloud-based BIM Governance Platfrom (GovernBIM); (c) development of a set of BPMN diagrams to describe the internal and external business procedures of the Govern- BIM platform lifecycle; (d) evaluation of several fundamental use cases for the adoption of the GovernBIM platform; (e) presentation of a core BIM governance model (class di- agram) to present the internal structure of the GovernBIM platform; (f) provision of a well-structured, Cloud-based architecture to develop a GovernBIM platform for practical implementation; and (j) development of a Cloud-based prototype focused on the main identified functionalities of BIM governance. Despite the fact that a number of concerns remain (i.e. privacy and security) the proposed Cloud-based GovernBIM solution opens up an opportunity to provide increased control over the collaborative process, and to resolve associated issues, e.g. ownership, data inconsistencies, and intellectual property. Finally, it presents a road map for further development of Cloud-based BIM governance platforms

A Cloud Environment for Data-intensive Storage Services

Abstract — The emergence of cloud environments has made feasible the delivery of Internet-scale services by addressing a number of challenges such as live migration, fault tolerance and quality of service. However, current approaches do not tackle key issues related to cloud storage, which are of increasing importance given the enormous amount of data being produced in today's rich digital environment (e.g. by smart phones, social networks, sensors, user generated content). In this paper we present the architecture of a scalable and flexible cloud environment addressing the challenge of providing data-intensive storage cloud services through raising the abstraction level of storage, enabling data mobility across providers, allowing computational and content-centric access to storage and deploying new data-oriented mechanisms for QoS and security guarantees. We also demonstrate the adde