Developing front-end Web 2.0 technologies to access services, content and things in the future Internet

The future Internet is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable web services accessible from all over the web. This approach has not yet caught on since global user?service interaction is still an open issue. This paper states one vision with regard to next-generation front-end Web 2.0 technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the future Internet. In this paper, we illustrate how front-ends that wrap traditional services and resources can be tailored to the needs of end users, converting end users into prosumers (creators and consumers of service-based applications). To do this, we propose an architecture that end users without programming skills can use to create front-ends, consult catalogues of resources tailored to their needs, easily integrate and coordinate front-ends and create composite applications to orchestrate services in their back-end. The paper includes a case study illustrating that current user-centred web development tools are at a very early stage of evolution. We provide statistical data on how the proposed architecture improves these tools. This paper is based on research conducted by the Service Front End (SFE) Open Alliance initiative

Next Generation Cloud Computing: New Trends and Research Directions

The landscape of cloud computing has significantly changed over the last decade. Not only have more providers and service offerings crowded the space, but also cloud infrastructure that was traditionally limited to single provider data centers is now evolving. In this paper, we firstly discuss the changing cloud infrastructure and consider the use of infrastructure from multiple providers and the benefit of decentralising computing away from data centers. These trends have resulted in the need for a variety of new computing architectures that will be offered by future cloud infrastructure. These architectures are anticipated to impact areas, such as connecting people and devices, data-intensive computing, the service space and self-learning systems. Finally, we lay out a roadmap of challenges that will need to be addressed for realising the potential of next generation cloud systems.Comment: Accepted to Future Generation Computer Systems, 07 September 201

EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming "Ubiquitous SOA"

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate Intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call the ubiquitous SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

Supporting End-User Development through a New Composition Model: An Empirical Study

End-user development (EUD) is much hyped, and its impact has outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts. Even so, the vision of end users programming their own solutions has not yet materialized. This will continue to be so unless we in both industry and the research community set ourselves the ambitious challenge of devising end to end an end-user application development model for developing a new age of EUD tools. We have embarked on this venture, and this paper presents the main insights and outcomes of our research and development efforts as part of a number of successful EU research projects. Our proposal not only aims to reshape software engineering to meet the needs of EUD but also to refashion its components as solution building blocks instead of programs and software developments. This way, end users will really be empowered to build solutions based on artefacts akin to their expertise and understanding of ideal solution

EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming Web of Services

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web Services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call a user-centric SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of Services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

Algorithms for advance bandwidth reservation in media production networks

Media production generally requires many geographically distributed actors (e.g., production houses, broadcasters, advertisers) to exchange huge amounts of raw video and audio data. Traditional distribution techniques, such as dedicated point-to-point optical links, are highly inefficient in terms of installation time and cost. To improve efficiency, shared media production networks that connect all involved actors over a large geographical area, are currently being deployed. The traffic in such networks is often predictable, as the timing and bandwidth requirements of data transfers are generally known hours or even days in advance. As such, the use of advance bandwidth reservation (AR) can greatly increase resource utilization and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose an Integer Linear Programming formulation of the bandwidth scheduling problem, which takes into account the specific characteristics of media production networks, is presented. Two novel optimization algorithms based on this model are thoroughly evaluated and compared by means of in-depth simulation results