Enabling Hyperscale Web Services

Modern web services such as social media, online messaging, web search, video streaming, and online banking often support billions of users, requiring data centers that scale to hundreds of thousands of servers, i.e., hyperscale. In fact, the world continues to expect hyperscale computing to drive more futuristic applications such as virtual reality, self-driving cars, conversational AI, and the Internet of Things. This dissertation presents technologies that will enable tomorrow’s web services to meet the world’s expectations. The key challenge in enabling hyperscale web services arises from two important trends. First, over the past few years, there has been a radical shift in hyperscale computing due to an unprecedented growth in data, users, and web service software functionality. Second, modern hardware can no longer support this growth in hyperscale trends due to a decline in hardware performance scaling. To enable this new hyperscale era, hardware architects must become more aware of hyperscale software needs and software researchers can no longer expect unlimited hardware performance scaling. In short, systems researchers can no longer follow the traditional approach of building each layer of the systems stack separately. Instead, they must rethink the synergy between the software and hardware worlds from the ground up. This dissertation establishes such a synergy to enable futuristic hyperscale web services. This dissertation bridges the software and hardware worlds, demonstrating the importance of that bridge in realizing efficient hyperscale web services via solutions that span the systems stack. The specific goal is to design software that is aware of new hardware constraints and architect hardware that efficiently supports new hyperscale software requirements. This dissertation spans two broad thrusts: (1) a software and (2) a hardware thrust to analyze the complex hyperscale design space and use insights from these analyses to design efficient cross-stack solutions for hyperscale computation. In the software thrust, this dissertation contributes uSuite, the first open-source benchmark suite of web services built with a new hyperscale software paradigm, that is used in academia and industry to study hyperscale behaviors. Next, this dissertation uses uSuite to study software threading implications in light of today’s hardware reality, identifying new insights in the age-old research area of software threading. Driven by these insights, this dissertation demonstrates how threading models must be redesigned at hyperscale by presenting an automated approach and tool, uTune, that makes intelligent run-time threading decisions. In the hardware thrust, this dissertation architects both commodity and custom hardware to efficiently support hyperscale software requirements. First, this dissertation characterizes commodity hardware’s shortcomings, revealing insights that influenced commercial CPU designs. Based on these insights, this dissertation presents an approach and tool, SoftSKU, that enables cheap commodity hardware to efficiently support new hyperscale software paradigms, improving the efficiency of real-world web services that serve billions of users, saving millions of dollars, and meaningfully reducing the global carbon footprint. This dissertation also presents a hardware-software co-design, uNotify, that redesigns commodity hardware with minimal modifications by using existing hardware mechanisms more intelligently to overcome new hyperscale overheads. Next, this dissertation characterizes how custom hardware must be designed at hyperscale, resulting in industry-academia benchmarking efforts, commercial hardware changes, and improved software development. Based on this characterization’s insights, this dissertation presents Accelerometer, an analytical model that estimates gains from hardware customization. Multiple hyperscale enterprises and hardware vendors use Accelerometer to make well-informed hardware decisions.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169802/1/akshitha_1.pd

Rethinking Software Network Data Planes in the Era of Microservices

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

New Waves of IoT Technologies Research – Transcending Intelligence and Senses at the Edge to Create Multi Experience Environments

The next wave of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) brings new technological developments that incorporate radical advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing processing, new sensing capabilities, more security protection and autonomous functions accelerating progress towards the ability for IoT systems to self-develop, self-maintain and self-optimise. The emergence of hyper autonomous IoT applications with enhanced sensing, distributed intelligence, edge processing and connectivity, combined with human augmentation, has the potential to power the transformation and optimisation of industrial sectors and to change the innovation landscape. This chapter is reviewing the most recent advances in the next wave of the IoT by looking not only at the technology enabling the IoT but also at the platforms and smart data aspects that will bring intelligence, sustainability, dependability, autonomy, and will support human-centric solutions.acceptedVersio

DRIVER Technology Watch Report

This report is part of the Discovery Workpackage (WP4) and is the third report out of four deliverables. The objective of this report is to give an overview of the latest technical developments in the world of digital repositories, digital libraries and beyond, in order to serve as theoretical and practical input for the technical DRIVER developments, especially those focused on enhanced publications. This report consists of two main parts, one part focuses on interoperability standards for enhanced publications, the other part consists of three subchapters, which give a landscape picture of current and surfacing technologies and communities crucial to DRIVER. These three subchapters contain the GRID, CRIS and LTP communities and technologies. Every chapter contains a theoretical explanation, followed by case studies and the outcomes and opportunities for DRIVER in this field

Integração do protocolo SIP à norma IEEE 1451 para redes de sensores sem fio

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação.Redes de sensores sem fio (RSSF) são compostas por dispositivos chamados nós sensores, os quais são capazes de monitorar alguns fenômenos do meio ambiente que os rodeia, tais como informações escalares (temperatura, aceleração) ou multimídia (áudio, vídeo), transformando-os em sinais digitais e comunicando-se com outros nós da rede. A fim de padronizar o acesso e o comportamento das diversas plataformas existentes, a família de padrões IEEE 1451 foi desenvolvida. Esta padronização introduz conceitos interessantes, como a divisão do sistema em duas partes principais, NCAP (Network Capable Application Processor) e TIM (Transducer Interface Module), e a definição dos TEDS (Transducer Electronic Data Sheet). Porém, o padrão não trata eficientemente os requisitos das RSSF atuais, tal como a necessidade dos sensores executarem de forma eficiente e energeticamente consciente, permitindo economizar sua energia, fator crítico em grande parte destes dispositivos. Assim, este trabalho apresenta um novo modo de execução chamado TIM-IM (TIM Initiated Message), o qual permite que TIMs reportem seus dados sempre que houver novas leituras sensoriadas, ao invés de aguardar por polling originado pelo NCAP, evitando permanecer com o módulo de comunicação ligado grande parte do tempo. Adicionalmente, o padrão IEEE 1451 limita-se às redes de sensores que captam informações escalares. Assim, a presente dissertação visa, também, a integração de sensores multimídia à norma, apresentando algumas modificações tanto nos TEDS quanto nas mensagens trafegadas entre NCAP e TIM. A fim de permitir o acesso aos sensores através da rede do usuário, foi utilizado o protocolo SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). SIP vem sendo bastante utilizado atualmente junto à tecnologia VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), sendo responsável por estabelecer, modificar e finalizar uma sessão. Devido ao seu tamanho, torna-se inviável seu uso em muitos sistemas embarcados com restrição de recursos. Logo, este trabalho apresenta uma miniaturização do mesmo, alcançada através da eliminação de algumas requisições e campos de cabeçalho (do inglês header fields). Por fim, é apresentada a integração do protocolo SIP ao IEEE 1451. Para isto, foi utilizado o estabelecimento de sessões, assim como o esquema de notificação de presença presente no SIP e a extensão relativa à transferência de mensagens instantâneas. Assim, com a união de ambas as normas, permite-se que sensores sejam acessados por usuários remotos utilizando SIP phones, através da Internet, independentemente de sua localização física.Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are formed by devices called sensor nodes capable of monitoring some phenomena around them, such as scalar information (temperature, acceleration) or multimedia (audio, video), transforming them into digital signals and communicating with other nodes. In order to standardize the access and behavior of the various platforms available, the IEEE 1451 standards family was developed. This standardization introduces interesting concepts, such as splitting the system into two major parts, NCAP (Network Capable Application Processor) and TIM (Transducer Interface Module), and the definition of TEDS (Transducer Electronic Data Sheet). However, the standard does not address efficiently the requirements of current WSN, such as the need for sensors perform efficiently and energyconscious, saving its energy, which is critical for most of these devices. This work presents a new execution mode called TIM-IM (TIM Initiated Message), which allows TIMs to report its data whenever there are new sensed readings, rather than wait for polling originated by NCAP, avoiding remain with the communication module connected all the time. Additionally, IEEE 1451 is limited to sensor networks that collect scalar information. Thus, this thesis also aims at the integration of multimedia sensors to the standard, presenting some modifications in TEDS and in the messages sent between NCAP and TIM. In order to allow the access to sensors via user#s network, it was used the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) protocol. SIP has been widely used today by the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology and it is responsible to establish, modify and terminate a session. Due to its size, its use is not feasible in many resource-constrained embedded systems. Thus, this work presented a miniaturization of the protocol, achieved through the elimination of some requests and header fields. Finally, it was presented the integration of SIP to IEEE 1451. For this, it was used the session establishment, as well as the presence notification scheme of the SIP protocol and the extension for the transfer of instant messages. Thus, with the union of both standards, sensors can be accessed by remote users using SIP phones through the Internet, regardless of their physical location

Addressing Insider Threats from Smart Devices

Smart devices have unique security challenges and are becoming increasingly common. They have been used in the past to launch cyber attacks such as the Mirai attack. This work is focused on solving the threats posed to and by smart devices inside a network. The size of the problem is quantified; the initial compromise is prevented where possible, and compromised devices are identified. To gain insight into the size of the problem, campus Domain Name System (DNS) measurements were taken that allow for wireless traffic to be separated from wired traffic. Two-thirds of the DNS traffic measured came from wireless hosts, implying that mobile devices are playing a bigger role in networks. Also, port scans and service discovery protocols were used to identify Internet of Things (IoT) devices on the campus network and follow-up work was done to assess the state of the IoT devices. Motivated by these findings, three solutions were developed. To handle the scenario when compromised mobile devices are connected to the network, a new strategy for steppingstone detection was developed with both an application layer and a transport layer solution. The proposed solution is effective even when the mobile device cellular connection is used. Also, malicious or vulnerable applications make it through the mobile app store vetting process. A user space tool was developed that identifies apps contacting malicious domains in real time and collects data for research purposes. Malicious app behavior can then be identified on the user’s device, catching malicious apps that were overlooked by software vetting. Last, the variety of IoT device types and manufacturers makes the job of keeping them secure difficult. A generic framework was developed to lighten the management burden of securing IoT devices, serve as a middle box to secure legacy devices, and also use DNS queries as a way to identify misbehaving devices

Internet of Things From Hype to Reality

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant mindshare, let alone attention, in academia and the industry especially over the past few years. The reasons behind this interest are the potential capabilities that IoT promises to offer. On the personal level, it paints a picture of a future world where all the things in our ambient environment are connected to the Internet and seamlessly communicate with each other to operate intelligently. The ultimate goal is to enable objects around us to efficiently sense our surroundings, inexpensively communicate, and ultimately create a better environment for us: one where everyday objects act based on what we need and like without explicit instructions