Directory-based incentive management services for ad-hoc mobile clouds

Mobile cloud computing is envisioned as a promising approach to augment the computational capabilities of mobile devices for emerging resource-intensive mobile applications. This augmentation is generally achieved through the capabilities of stationary resources in cloud data centers. However, these resources are mostly not free and sometimes not available. Mobile devices are becoming powerful day by day and can form a self-organizing mobile ad-hoc network of nearby devices and offer their resources as on-demand services to available nodes in the network. In the ad-hoc mobile cloud, devices can move after consuming or providing services to one another. During this process, the problem of incentives arises for a node to provide service to another device (or other devices) in the network, which ultimately decreases the motivation of the mobile device to form an ad-hoc mobile cloud. To solve this problem, we propose a directory-based architecture that keeps track of the retribution and reward valuations (in terms of energy saved and consumed) for devices even after they move from one ad-hoc environment to another. From simulation results, we infer that this framework increases the motivation for mobile devices to form a self-organizing proximate mobile cloud network and to share their resources in the network

Systematizing Decentralization and Privacy: Lessons from 15 Years of Research and Deployments

Decentralized systems are a subset of distributed systems where multiple authorities control different components and no authority is fully trusted by all. This implies that any component in a decentralized system is potentially adversarial. We revise fifteen years of research on decentralization and privacy, and provide an overview of key systems, as well as key insights for designers of future systems. We show that decentralized designs can enhance privacy, integrity, and availability but also require careful trade-offs in terms of system complexity, properties provided, and degree of decentralization. These trade-offs need to be understood and navigated by designers. We argue that a combination of insights from cryptography, distributed systems, and mechanism design, aligned with the development of adequate incentives, are necessary to build scalable and successful privacy-preserving decentralized systems

Crowdcloud: A Crowdsourced System for Cloud Infrastructure

The widespread adoption of truly portable, smart devices and Do-It-Yourself computing platforms by the general public has enabled the rise of new network and system paradigms. This abundance of wellconnected, well-equipped, affordable devices, when combined with crowdsourcing methods, enables the development of systems with the aid of the crowd. In this work, we introduce the paradigm of Crowdsourced Systems, systems whose constituent infrastructure, or a significant part of it, is pooled from the general public by following crowdsourcing methodologies. We discuss the particular distinctive characteristics they carry and also provide their “canonical” architecture. We exemplify the paradigm by also introducing Crowdcloud, a crowdsourced cloud infrastructure where crowd members can act both as cloud service providers and cloud service clients. We discuss its characteristic properties and also provide its functional architecture. The concepts introduced in this work underpin recent advances in the areas of mobile edge/fog computing and co-designed/cocreated systems

On Mobile Cloud Computing in a Mobile Learning System

In the recent years, the nature of the Internet was constantly changing from a place used to read web pages to an environment that allows end-users to run software applications. Interactivity and collaboration have become the keywords of the new web content. This new environment supports the creation of a new generation of applications that are able to run on a wide range of hardware devices, like Mobile Phones or Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and this development gives rise to Mobile Cloud Computing. Mobile Cloud Computing at its simplest refers to an infrastructure where both the data storage and the data processing take place outside of the mobile device. Mobile cloud applications move the computing power and data storage away from mobile phones and into the cloud, bringing applications and mobile computing to not just smartphone users but a much broader range of mobile subscribers. In this work, Mobile learning system is designed based on electronic learning (e-learning) and mobility, within the context of mobile cloud computing. However, traditional m-learning applications have limitations in terms of high cost of devices and network, low network transmission rate, and limited educational resources; this cloud-based -learning application is introduced to solve these limitations. A mobile website is developed as well as a mobile application, this services which will be offered free, which will then gather relevant information in relation to the individuals’ topic of interest from a database located on a remote server and also web-links gotten from the cloud (internet) to expand the knowledge and understanding of the individual in the area of interest. Keyword: Cloud Computing, Mobile Learning System, Mobile Device

Fog Computing

Everything that is not a computer, in the traditional sense, is being connected to the Internet. These devices are also referred to as the Internet of Things and they are pressuring the current network infrastructure. Not all devices are intensive data producers and part of them can be used beyond their original intent by sharing their computational resources. The combination of those two factors can be used either to perform insight over the data closer where is originated or extend into new services by making available computational resources, but not exclusively, at the edge of the network. Fog computing is a new computational paradigm that provides those devices a new form of cloud at a closer distance where IoT and other devices with connectivity capabilities can offload computation. In this dissertation, we have explored the fog computing paradigm, and also comparing with other paradigms, namely cloud, and edge computing. Then, we propose a novel architecture that can be used to form or be part of this new paradigm. The implementation was tested on two types of applications. The first application had the main objective of demonstrating the correctness of the implementation while the other application, had the goal of validating the characteristics of fog computing.Tudo o que não é um computador, no sentido tradicional, está sendo conectado à Internet. Esses dispositivos também são chamados de Internet das Coisas e estão pressionando a infraestrutura de rede atual. Nem todos os dispositivos são produtores intensivos de dados e parte deles pode ser usada além de sua intenção original, compartilhando seus recursos computacionais. A combinação desses dois fatores pode ser usada para realizar processamento dos dados mais próximos de onde são originados ou estender para a criação de novos serviços, disponibilizando recursos computacionais periféricos à rede. Fog computing é um novo paradigma computacional que fornece a esses dispositivos uma nova forma de nuvem a uma distância mais próxima, onde “Things” e outros dispositivos com recursos de conectividade possam delegar processamento. Nesta dissertação, exploramos fog computing e também comparamos com outros paradigmas, nomeadamente cloud e edge computing. Em seguida, propomos uma nova arquitetura que pode ser usada para formar ou fazer parte desse novo paradigma. A implementação foi testada em dois tipos de aplicativos. A primeira aplicação teve o objetivo principal de demonstrar a correção da implementação, enquanto a outra aplicação, teve como objetivo validar as características de fog computing

Performance evaluation of a distributed storage service in community network clouds

Community networks are self-organized and decentralized communication networks built and operated by citizens, for citizens. The consolidation of today's cloud technologies offers now, for community networks, the possibility to collectively develop community clouds, building upon user-provided networks and extending toward cloud services. Cloud storage, and in particular secure and reliable cloud storage, could become a key community cloud service to enable end-user applications. In this paper, we evaluate in a real deployment the performance of Tahoe least-authority file system (Tahoe-LAFS), a decentralized storage system with provider-independent security that guarantees privacy to the users. We evaluate how the Tahoe-LAFS storage system performs when it is deployed over distributed community cloud nodes in a real community network such as Guifi.net. Furthermore, we evaluate Tahoe-LAFS in the Microsoft Azure commercial cloud platform, to compare and understand the impact of homogeneous network and hardware resources on the performance of the Tahoe-LAFS. We observed that the write operation of Tahoe-LAFS resulted in similar performance when using either the community network cloud or the commercial cloud. However, the read operation achieved better performance in the Azure cloud, where the reading from multiple nodes of Tahoe-LAFS benefited from the homogeneity of the network and nodes. Our results suggest that Tahoe-LAFS can run on community network clouds with suitable performance for the needed end-user experience.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Game Theory-based Allocation Management in VCC Networks

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have contributed significantly towards improving road traffic management and safety. VANETs, integrated with Vehicular Clouds, enable underutilized vehicular resources for efficient resource management, fulfilling service requests. However, due to the frequently changing network topology of vehicular cloud networks, the vehicles frequently move out of the coverage area of roadside units (RSUs), disconnecting from the RSUs and interrupting the fulfillment of ongoing service requests. In addition, working with heterogeneous vehicles makes it difficult to match the service requests with the varying resources of individual vehicles. Therefore, to address these challenges, this work introduces the concept of clustering resources from nearby vehicles to form Combined Resource Units (CRUs). These units contribute to maximizing the rate of fulfillment of service requests. CRU composition is helpful, especially for the heterogeneity of vehicles, since it allows clustering the varying resources of vehicles into a single unit. The vehicle resources are clustered into CRUs based on three different sized pools, making the service matching process more time-efficient. Previous works have adopted stochastic models for resource clustering configurations. However, this work adopts distinct search algorithms for CRU composition, which are computationally less complex. Results showed that light-weight search algorithms, such as selective search algorithm (SSA), achieved close to 80% of resource availability without over-assembling CRUs in higher density scenarios. Following CRU composition, a game-theoretical approach is opted for allocating CRUs to service requests. Under this approach, the CRUs play a non-cooperative game to maximize their utility, contributing to factors such as fairness, efficiency, improved system performance and reduced system overhead. The utility value takes into account the RSS (Received Signal Strength) value of each CRU and the resources required in fulfilling a request. Results of the game model showed that the proposed approach of CRU composition obtained 90% success rate towards matching and fulfilling service requests