Orquestração de um pipeline de ferramentas para apoio ao ensino

The variety and nature of tools that are nowadays used on both academic and professional contexts have been increasing over the past few years. With the non stopping evolving cycle that technology suffers on a daily basis, this is a consequence that will be even more noticeable in a not so distant future. As a result, several problems have emerged. How to handle all of the crucial tools in a simple and reliable way? How to structure that process so it can scale, in order to apply it whenever the tools are being used by several people? Services specialization, such as microservices, taking advantage of the core tools features, allows the automation of almost all the needed configurations required. This thesis focus on the design and implementation of a solution that enhances the ease and efficiency of creating and configuring working environments either of students or workers, being, however, more focused on the academic environment. To achieve this, a prototype tool has been developed, which consists in several services that when combined together are capable of creating and configuring a software development integration pipeline. The prototype is responsive to a certain configuration input and handles all the tasks needed in between the configuration steps, keeping the resulting pipeline always up to date.A variedade e natureza das ferramentas que são hoje em dia utilizadas tanto em contextos académicos como profissionais têm vindo a aumentar nos últimos anos. Com o constante ciclo evolutivo que a tecnologia sofre diariamente, este aumento é um fator que será ainda mais percetível num futuro próximo. Por conseguinte, vários problemas têm surgido. Como lidar com todas as ferramentas cruciais de uma forma simples e fiável? Como estruturar esse processo para que possa ser escalado, a fim de o aplicar a situações em que as ferramentas estejam a ser utilizadas por várias pessoas? A especialização em serviços, surgindo aqui o conceito de microserviços, aproveitando algumas das funcionalidades oferecidas por parte das ferramentas, permite a automação de quase todas as configurações necessárias. Esta tese tem como foco a conceção e implementação de uma solução que torne mais simples e eficiente o processo de criação e configuração de ambientes de trabalho, quer de estudantes quer de trabalhadores dando, no entanto, mais foco à vertente académica. Para o conseguir, foi desenvolvido um protótipo, que consiste em vários serviços que, quando combinados, são capazes de criar e configurar uma pipeline de integração de software. O protótipo tem como input uma determinada estrutura de dados e trata de todas as tarefas necessárias entre as etapas de configuração, mantendo assim a pipeline sempre atualizada. Esta tese relata todo o processo envolvido na elaboração da solução final em cima descrita, estando inerentes as fases de estudo acerca dos conceitos fulcrais ao problema, análise de valor e de negócio, proposta de design, implementação e avaliação da solução desejada

Scientific workflow orchestration interoperating HTC and HPC resources

8 páginas, 7 figuras.-- El Pdf del artículo es la versión pre-print.In this work we describe our developments towards the provision of a unified access method to different types of computing infrastructures at the interop- eration level. For that, we have developed a middleware suite which bridges not interoperable middleware stacks used for building distributed computing infrastructues, UNICORE and gLite. Our solution allows to transparently access and operate on HPC and HTC resources from a single interface. Using Kepler as workflow manager, we provide users with the needed integration of codes to create scientific workflows accessing both types of infrastructures.Peer reviewe

Development of a new expandable Andon light system into lean manufacturing production using MQTT and smart bulbs

n an era of constant technological advancement, manufacturing industries are witnessing transformative changes. The traditional Andon system, once a cornerstone of lean manufacturing through visual and auditory cues, now faces the need for modernization in today’s interconnected production facilities. This thesis explores the development and implementation of an advanced Andon light system in the context of in-house logistics and manufacturing. It addresses the need for an updated system to replace outdated hardware and software. Using MQTT as a lightweight communication protocol and smart bulbs with Zigbee technology, the research focuses on improving system efficiency and versatility. The study presents the development of a solution which offers the traditional Andon light system features with support for diverse applications. This thesis relies primarily on experimental research to address the development of the Andon system. The research encompasses critical decisions regarding the choice of communication protocol, specifically among MQTT, HTTP, and WebSockets. Additionally, the selection of system hardware is examined, with a comparative analysis between conventional Andon light posts and smart bulbs. Each choice is meticulously explained based on its features and implications. Further on the development process and the architecture of the system is explained in-depth. The system presented in this thesis prioritizes cost-efficiency, resulting in the utilization of two smart bulbs per manufacturing cell. This decision posed a significant challenge due to the complexities in managing colors within these two bulbs. While not directly applicable as traditional Andon lights, this thesis explores alternative applications for the system, emphasizing its potential for expansion within logistics and observability

Lightweight Environment for Cyber Security Education

The use of physical systems and Virtual Machines has become inefficient and expensive for creating tailored, hands-on exercises for providing cyber security training. The main purpose of this project is to directly address these issues faced in cyber security education with the help of Docker containers. Using Docker, a lightweight and automated platform was developed for creating, sharing, and managing hands-on exercises. With the help of orchestration tools, this platform provides a centralized point to monitor and control the systems and exercises with a high degree of automation. In a classroom/lab environment, this infrastructure enables instructors and students not only to share exercises but also helps create and deploy exercises more easily. By streamlining the end to end delivery and deployment of the exercises, instructors can now efficiently make use of the class/lab hours in educating the students rather than performing system administration tasks

Riding out of the storm: How to deal with the complexity of grid and cloud management

Over the last decade, Grid computing paved the way for a new level of large scale distributed systems. This infrastructure made it possible to securely and reliably take advantage of widely separated computational resources that are part of several different organizations. Resources can be incorporated to the Grid, building a theoretical virtual supercomputer. In time, cloud computing emerged as a new type of large scale distributed system, inheriting and expanding the expertise and knowledge that have been obtained so far. Some of the main characteristics of Grids naturally evolved into clouds, others were modified and adapted and others were simply discarded or postponed. Regardless of these technical specifics, both Grids and clouds together can be considered as one of the most important advances in large scale distributed computing of the past ten years; however, this step in distributed computing has came along with a completely new level of complexity. Grid and cloud management mechanisms play a key role, and correct analysis and understanding of the system behavior are needed. Large scale distributed systems must be able to self-manage, incorporating autonomic features capable of controlling and optimizing all resources and services. Traditional distributed computing management mechanisms analyze each resource separately and adjust specific parameters of each one of them. When trying to adapt the same procedures to Grid and cloud computing, the vast complexity of these systems can make this task extremely complicated. But large scale distributed systems complexity could only be a matter of perspective. It could be possible to understand the Grid or cloud behavior as a single entity, instead of a set of resources. This abstraction could provide a different understanding of the system, describing large scale behavior and global events that probably would not be detected analyzing each resource separately. In this work we define a theoretical framework that combines both ideas, multiple resources and single entity, to develop large scale distributed systems management techniques aimed at system performance optimization, increased dependability and Quality of Service (QoS). The resulting synergy could be the key 350 J. Montes et al. to address the most important difficulties of Grid and cloud management

Design and performance evaluation of advanced QoS-enabled service-oriented architectures for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming reality, the cut off prices as well as the advancement in the consumer electronic field are the two main training factor. For this reason, new application scenarios are designed every days and then new challenges that must be addressed. In the future we will be surrounded by many smart devices, which will sense and act on the physical environment. Such number of smart devices will be the building block for a plethora of new smart applications which will provide to end user new enhanced service. In this context, the Quality of Service (QoS) has been recognized as a non functional key requirement for the success of the IoT. In fact, in the future IoT, we will have different applications each one with different QoS requirements, which will need to interact with a finite set of smart device each one with its QoS capabilities. Such mapping between requested and offered QoS must be managed in order to satisfy the end users. The work of this thesis focus on how to provide QoS for IoT in a cross-layer manner. In other words, our main goal is to provide QoS support that, on one hand, helps the back-end architecture to manage a wide set of IoT applications, each one with its QoS requirements, while, on the other hand, enhances the access network by adding QoS capabilities on top of smart devices. We analyzed existing QoS framework and, based on the status of the art, we derive a novel model specifically tailored for IoT systems. Then we define the procedures needed to negotiate the desired QoS level and to enforce the negotiated QoS. In particular we take care of the Thing selection problem which is raised whenever more than one thing can be exploited to obtain a certain service. Finally we considered the access network by providing different solutions to handle QoS with different grain scale. We proposed a totally transparent solution which exploits virtualization and proxying techniques to differentiate between different class of client and provide a class based prioritization schema. Then we went further by designing a QoS framework directly on top of a standard IoT protocol called Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). We designed the QoS support to enhance the Observing paradigm which is of paramount importance especially if we consider industrial applications which might benefit from a certain level of QoS assurances

Dynamic and heterogeneous wireless sensor network for virtual instrumentation services

En el presente Trabajo Fin de Master se ha llevado a cabo el desarrollo de un sistema orientado a la adquisición de información sensorial, a través del uso de redes de sensores inalámbricas (WSN, del inglés Wireless Sensor Networks), de un sistema dinámico cuyo comportamiento se desea caracterizar. Para la gestión de la información de los sensores heterogéneos presentes en la red se han aplicado los conceptos de SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) a dicha red inalámbrica, de manera que cada uno de los sensores presentes en la red se trata como un servicio de medida. La arquitectura propuesta incorpora un mecanismo de "Plug & Play" para la reconfiguración dinámica de la red así como un proceso de composición de servicios que permite la creación de los denominados instrumentos virtuales a través de la asociación de diferentes sensores. Estos instrumentos virtuales agrupan las capacidades de varios sensores heterogeneos de forma que pueden ofrecer al usuario final información de alto nivel complementada con indicios de calidad de dicha información. Para la obtención de este sistema, las tareas que se han llevado a cabo en este trabajo han sido: se han realizado estudios previos de la utilizacion actual de las redes de sensores inalámbricas y de las arquitecturas SOA aplicadas a WSN. Se ha diseñado la arquitectura de la WSN más adecuada para esta sistema así como el mecanismo "Plug & Play" necesario para el descubrimiento de dispositivos y servicios. Se han estudiado y evaluado los criterios más adecuados para la agrupación de sensores para formar el instrumento virtual de forma automática y transparente. Por último, se ha evaluado la validez de la arquitectura propuesta por medio de su aplicación en un caso concreto en el campo de la logística, en particular, en la supervisión de artículos perecederos. Para ello, ha sido necesario diseñar y definir previamente los módulos de sofware necesarios para la implementación del sistema