Cognitive load balancing approach for 6G MEC serving IoT mashups

The sixth generation (6G) of communication networks represents more of a revolution than an evolution of the previous generations, providing new directions and innovative approaches to face the network challenges of the future. A crucial aspect is to make the best use of available resources for the support of an entirely new generation of services. From this viewpoint, the Web of Things (WoT), which enables Things to become Web Things to chain, use and re-use in IoT mashups, allows interoperability among IoT platforms. At the same time, Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) brings computing and data storage to the edge of the network, which creates the so-called distributed and collective edge intelligence. Such intelligence is created in order to deal with the huge amount of data to be collected, analyzed and processed, from real word contexts, such as smart cities, which are evolving into dynamic and networked systems of people and things. To better exploit this architecture, it is crucial to break monolithic applications into modular microservices, which can be executed independently. Here, we propose an approach based on complex network theory and two weighted and interdependent multiplex networks to address the Microservices-compliant Load Balancing (McLB) problem in MEC infrastructure. Our findings show that the multiplex network representation represents an extra dimension of analysis, allowing to capture the complexity in WoT mashup organization and its impact on the organizational aspect of MEC servers. The impact of this extracted knowledge on the cognitive organization of MEC is quantified, through the use of heuristics that are engineered to guarantee load balancing and, consequently, QoS.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations

Performance and efficiency optimization of multi-layer IoT edge architecture

Abstract. Internet of Things (IoT) has become a backbone technology that connects together various devices with diverse capabilities. It is a technology, which enables ubiquitously available digital services for end-users. IoT applications for mission-critical scenarios need strict performance indicators such as of latency, scalability, security and privacy. To fulfil these requirements, IoT also requires support from relevant enabling technologies, such as cloud, edge, virtualization and fifth generation mobile communication (5G) technologies. For Latency-critical applications and services, long routes between the traditional cloud server and end-devices (sensors /actuators) is not a feasible approach for computing at these data centres, although these traditional clouds provide very high computational and storage for current IoT system. MEC model can be used to overcome this challenge, which brings the CC computational capacity within or next on the access network base stations. However, the capacity to perform the most critical processes at the local network layer is often necessary to cope with the access network issues. Therefore, this thesis compares the two existing IoT models such as traditional cloud-IoT model, a MEC-based edge-cloud-IoT model, with proposed local edge-cloud-IoT model with respect to their performance and efficiency, using iFogSim simulator. The results consolidate our research team’s previous findings that utilizing the three-tier edge-IoT architecture, capable of optimally utilizing the computational capacity of each of the three tiers, is an effective measure to reduce energy consumption, improve end-to-end latency and minimize operational costs in latency-critical It applications

Distributed resource distribution and offloading for resource-agnostic microservices in industrial IoT

Due to increase in real-time mobile applications and Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) devices, the edge computing paradigm provides a systematic and eccentric platform for real-time Internet-of-Things applications. Though the paradigm provides an effective infrastructure, however the resource requirements of IIoT devices change radically with time, which is described as a resource-agnostic property. Therefore, the estimation of resource requirements of IIoT devices is a critical and resilient assignment. In addition, it requires an extensive amount of resources to process the data traffic flows and microservice offloading. Hence, we present RAISE, a novel resource-agnostic microservice offloading scheme for mobile IIoT devices. RAISE efficiently estimates the resource-agnostic nature of IIoT devices to maximize their resource utilization in the network. Based on the estimated resource requirement, we propose a resource-agnostic microservice offloading scheme to maximize the success rate. Extensive experiments show that RAISE provides better performance in terms of network throughput and Quality-of-Service (QoS) than the other existing methods, SDTO and DTOS, in terms of cost and reliability

Smart Resource Allocation in Internet-of-Things: Perspectives of Network, Security, and Economics

abstract: Emerging from years of research and development, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has finally paved its way into our daily lives. From smart home to Industry 4.0, IoT has been fundamentally transforming numerous domains with its unique superpower of interconnecting world-wide devices. However, the capability of IoT is largely constrained by the limited resources it can employ in various application scenarios, including computing power, network resource, dedicated hardware, etc. The situation is further exacerbated by the stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of many IoT applications, such as delay, bandwidth, security, reliability, and more. This mismatch in resources and demands has greatly hindered the deployment and utilization of IoT services in many resource-intense and QoS-sensitive scenarios like autonomous driving and virtual reality. I believe that the resource issue in IoT will persist in the near future due to technological, economic and environmental factors. In this dissertation, I seek to address this issue by means of smart resource allocation. I propose mathematical models to formally describe various resource constraints and application scenarios in IoT. Based on these, I design smart resource allocation algorithms and protocols to maximize the system performance in face of resource restrictions. Different aspects are tackled, including networking, security, and economics of the entire IoT ecosystem. For different problems, different algorithmic solutions are devised, including optimal algorithms, provable approximation algorithms, and distributed protocols. The solutions are validated with rigorous theoretical analysis and/or extensive simulation experiments.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Optimal Blind and Adaptive Fog Orchestration under Local Processor Sharing

International audienceThis paper studies the tradeoff between running cost and processing delay in order to optimally orchestrate multiple fog applications. Fog applications process batches of objects' data along chains of containerised microservice modules, which can run either for free on a local fog server or run in cloud at a cost. Processor sharing techniques, in turn, affect the applications' processing delay on a local edge server depending on the number of application modules running on the same server. The fog orchestrator copes with local server congestion by offloading part of computation to the cloud trading off processing delay for a finite budget. Such problem can be described in a convex optimisation framework valid for a large class of processor sharing techniques. The optimal solution is in threshold form and depends solely on the order induced by the marginal delays of N fog applications. This reduces the original multidimensional problem to an unidimensional one which can be solved in O(N 2) by a parallelised search algorithm under complete system information. Finally, an online learning procedure based on a primal-dual stochastic approximation algorithm is designed in order to drive optimal reconfiguration decisions in the dark, by requiring only the unbiased estimation of the marginal delays. Extensive numerical results characterise the structure of the optimal solution, the system performance and the advantage attained with respect to baseline algorithmic solutions

Fog Orchestration and Simulation for IoT Services

The Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects physical objects including sensors, vehicles, and buildings into a virtual circumstance, resulting in the increasing integration of Cyber-physical objects. The Fog computing paradigm extends both computation and storage services in Cloud computing environment to the network edge. Typically, IoT services comprise of a set of software components running over different locations connected through datacenter or wireless sensor networks. It is significantly important and cost-effective to orchestrate and deploy a group of microservices onto Fog appliances such as edge devices or Cloud servers for the formation of such IoT services. In this chapter, we discuss the challenges of realizing Fog orchestration for IoT services, and present a software-defined orchestration architecture and simulation solutions to intelligently compose and orchestrate thousands of heterogeneous Fog appliances. The resource provisioning, component placement and runtime QoS control in the orchestration procedure can harness workload dynamicity, network uncertainty and security demands whilst considering different applications’ requirement and appliances’ capabilities. Our practical experiences show that the proposed parallelized orchestrator can reduce the execution time by 50% with at least 30% higher orchestration quality. We believe that our solution plays an important role in the current Fog ecosystem

Reduciendo la brecha de seguridad del IoT con una arquitectura de microservicios basada en TLS y OAuth2

The Internet of Things has emerged as one of the most promising trends today. The speed of its adoption, however, has caused certain gaps. Amongst the most critical there is the one related with the security of the systems involved. This project addressed the security problem in a broad way but focusing on smart-home environments, where the use of devices with widely heterogeneous technologies and multiple services, generates problems with authentication and with the confidentiality of the data, if the network is compromised. To tackle these problems, state-of-the-art technologies such as OAuth2 and TLS, among others, were put together, along with an architectural methodology of lightly coupled microservices. As a result, a secure and broad range IoT architecture was built, backed up and validated by a reference implementation. The division into functional layers enables both fixed and mobile devices and sensors, to get connected into the system transparently and fluently. The security scheme structured in three incremental levels enables a better device integration, at the level that best adapts to its computing resources and the type of information it shares. The results show the flexibility of the solution and the robustness and novelty of the security scheme presented.El Internet de las cosas es una de las tendencias más prometedoras en la actualidad. La rapidez de su adopción, sin embargo, ha provocado ciertas brechas críticas en la seguridad de los sistemas involucrados. Este proyecto analizó el problema de seguridad de una manera amplia, pero enfocándose en entornos de tipo hogar inteligente, donde el uso de dispositivos con tecnologías ampliamente heterogéneas genera problemas en la autenticación con múltiples servicios, y en la confidencialidad de los datos, si la red llegara a verse comprometida. Para atacar estos problemas, se juntaron tecnologías de última generación como OAuth2 y TLS, entre otras, junto a una metodología arquitectural de microservicios de acoplamiento ligero, para generar una arquitectura IoT segura y de amplio alcance, respaldada y validada por una implementación de referencia. La división en capas funcionales permite que tanto los dispositivos y sensores fijos como aquellos móviles, puedan acoplarse al sistema de manera transparente y fluida. El esquema de seguridad estructurado en tres niveles incrementales permite que cada equipo pueda integrarse al que mejor se adapte tanto a sus recursos computacionales como al tipo de información que debe entregar o consumir. Los resultados muestran la flexibilidad de la solución y la solidez del esquema de seguridad presentado

A Capillary Computing Architecture for Dynamic Internet of Things: Orchestration of Microservices from Edge Devices to Fog and Cloud Providers

The adoption of advanced Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has impressively improved in recent years by placing such services at the extreme Edge of the network. There are, however, specific Quality of Service (QoS) trade-offs that must be considered, particularly in situations when workloads vary over time or when IoT devices are dynamically changing their geographic position. This article proposes an innovative capillary computing architecture, which benefits from mainstream Fog and Cloud computing approaches and relies on a set of new services, including an Edge/Fog/Cloud Monitoring System and a Capillary Container Orchestrator. All necessary Microservices are implemented as Docker containers, and their orchestration is performed from the Edge computing nodes up to Fog and Cloud servers in the geographic vicinity of moving IoT devices. A car equipped with a Motorhome Artificial Intelligence Communication Hardware (MACH) system as an Edge node connected to several Fog and Cloud computing servers was used for testing. Compared to using a fixed centralized Cloud provider, the service response time provided by our proposed capillary computing architecture was almost four times faster according to the 99th percentile value along with a significantly smaller standard deviation, which represents a high QoS. Document type: Articl