On edge microclouds to provide local container-based services

Edge computing has been proposed to enable more user-centric cloud-based services. Nowadays, edge computing is operational in industrial and consumer-oriented scenarios. An important limitation of today's solutions, however, is that the used hardware and software platforms are proprietary and closed, and cannot easily be leveraged to perform other services beyond the specific business case. For instance, the interaction among different edge platforms or service extension by third parties is in general not supported. As a consequence, the opportunity for local stakeholders to provide innovative tailored edge service with these platforms face important barriers. In this paper we present edge microclouds deployed on local servers and an implementation using containers for service provision. We show how the adopted container approach facilitates the users to create and share services at the network edge. With the presented approach, third parties can deploy more tailored and customized services at the network edge, enabling to better fulfill specific local needs and constraints. It is also an opportunity for building cloud-based service provision with a pool of local resource-constraint edge devices.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Building microclouds at the network edge with the Cloudy platform

Edge computing enables new types of services which operate at the network edge. There are important use cases in pervasive computing, ambient intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) for edge computing. In this demo paper we present microclouds deployed at the networks edge in the Guifi.net community network leveraging an open extensible platform called Cloudy. The demonstration focuses on the following aspects: The usage of Cloudy for end users, the services of Cloudy to build microclouds, and the application scenarios of IoT data management within microclouds.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

On edge cloud service provision with distributed home servers

Edge computing has been proposed for new types of cloud services, which need computing infrastructure at the network edge. Driven by important use cases from the Internet of Things (IoT) domain, edge cloud computing has also a huge business potential. Edge computing devices are already operational in many industrial and consumer-oriented scenarios. A typical characteristic of these solutions is, however, that the hardware and software platforms in use are proprietary and closed. The interaction among the different vendor platforms, and their extension with third party services, in general, is not well supported. As a consequence, the opportunities for third party providers to build new tailored edge services on these platforms face significant barriers. In this paper we argue to build a collaborative edge cloud deployed on home servers. We position the proposed system and describe its building elements, where we use Docker containers for provisioning the services.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

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

PiCasso: enabling information-centric multi-tenancy at the edge of community mesh networks

© 2019 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Edge computing is radically shaping the way Internet services are run by enabling computations to be available close to the users - thus mitigating the latency and performance challenges faced in today’s Internet infrastructure. Emerging markets, rural and remote communities are further away from the cloud and edge computing has indeed become an essential panacea. Many solutions have been recently proposed to facilitate efficient service delivery in edge data centers. However, we argue that those solutions cannot fully support the operations in Community Mesh Networks (CMNs) since the network connection may be less reliable and exhibit variable performance. In this paper, we propose to leverage lightweight virtualisation, Information-Centric Networking (ICN), and service deployment algorithms to overcome these limitations. The proposal is implemented in the PiCasso system, which utilises in-network caching and name based routing of ICN, combined with our HANET (HArdware and NETwork Resources) service deployment heuristic, to optimise the forwarding path of service delivery in a network zone. We analyse the data collected from the Guifi.net Sants network zone, to develop a smart heuristic for the service deployment in that zone. Through a real deployment in Guifi.net, we show that HANET improves the response time up to 53% and 28.7% for stateless and stateful services respectively. PiCasso achieves 43% traffic reduction on service delivery in our real deployment, compared to the traditional host-centric communication. The overall effect of our ICN platform is that most content and service delivery requests can be satisfied very close to the client device, many times just one hop away, decoupling QoS from intra-network traffic and origin server load.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Categorizing Challenges And Potentials Of Digital Industrial Platforms

In complex supply chains, digital platforms play an emerging role as an infrastructure for network-based collaboration of industrial companies to stay competitive. Participating in a platform business offers a range of new potentials, while also introducing new challenges. Awareness of these is crucial for both users and providers to make informed decisions. Thus, this paper provides an overview about typical challenges and potentials from the perspective of potential or actual digital industrial platform users to support decision making processes. Against that backdrop, a descriptive study is conducted in the field of industrial service platforms motivated from two sides. Expert workshops are held to examine the practical opportunities and hurdles. The findings are then compared to those identified in literature. Then, the results are organized into a category system that highlights the key challenges and potentials for users as well as providers of digital industrial platforms

Mobiilse värkvõrgu protsessihaldus

Värkvõrk, ehk Asjade Internet (Internet of Things, lüh IoT) edendab lahendusi nagu nn tark linn, kus meid igapäevaselt ümbritsevad objektid on ühendatud infosüsteemidega ja ka üksteisega. Selliseks näiteks võib olla teekatete seisukorra monitoorimissüsteem. Võrku ühendatud sõidukitelt (nt bussidelt) kogutakse videomaterjali, mida seejärel töödeldakse, et tuvastada löökauke või lume kogunemist. Tavaliselt hõlmab selline lahendus keeruka tsentraalse süsteemi ehitamist. Otsuste langetamiseks (nt milliseid sõidukeid parasjagu protsessi kaasata) vajab keskne süsteem pidevat ühendust kõigi IoT seadmetega. Seadmete hulga kasvades võib keskne lahendus aga muutuda pudelikaelaks. Selliste protsesside disaini, haldust, automatiseerimist ja seiret hõlbustavad märkimisväärselt äriprotsesside halduse (Business Process Management, lüh BPM) valdkonna standardid ja tööriistad. Paraku ei ole BPM tehnoloogiad koheselt kasutatavad uute paradigmadega nagu Udu- ja Servaarvutus, mis tuleviku värkvõrgu jaoks vajalikud on. Nende puhul liigub suur osa otsustustest ja arvutustest üksikutest andmekeskustest servavõrgu seadmetele, mis asuvad lõppkasutajatele ja IoT seadmetele lähemal. Videotöötlust võiks teostada mini-andmekeskustes, mis on paigaldatud üle linna, näiteks bussipeatustesse. Arvestades IoT seadmete üha suurenevat hulka, vähendab selline koormuse jaotamine vähendab riski, et tsentraalne andmekeskust ülekoormamist. Doktoritöö uurib, kuidas mobiilsusega seonduvaid IoT protsesse taoliselt ümber korraldada, kohanedes pidevalt muutlikule, liikuvate seadmetega täidetud servavõrgule. Nimelt on ühendused katkendlikud, mistõttu otsuste langetus ja planeerimine peavad arvestama muuhulgas mobiilseadmete liikumistrajektoore. Töö raames valminud prototüüpe testiti Android seadmetel ja simulatsioonides. Lisaks valmis tööriistakomplekt STEP-ONE, mis võimaldab teadlastel hõlpsalt simuleerida ja analüüsida taolisi probleeme erinevais realistlikes stsenaariumites nagu seda on tark linn.The Internet of Things (IoT) promotes solutions such as a smart city, where everyday objects connect with info systems and each other. One example is a road condition monitoring system, where connected vehicles, such as buses, capture video, which is then processed to detect potholes and snow build-up. Building such a solution typically involves establishing a complex centralised system. The centralised approach may become a bottleneck as the number of IoT devices keeps growing. It relies on constant connectivity to all involved devices to make decisions, such as which vehicles to involve in the process. Designing, automating, managing, and monitoring such processes can greatly be supported using the standards and software systems provided by the field of Business Process Management (BPM). However, BPM techniques are not directly applicable to new computing paradigms, such as Fog Computing and Edge Computing, on which the future of IoT relies. Here, a lot of decision-making and processing is moved from central data-centers to devices in the network edge, near the end-users and IoT sensors. For example, video could be processed in mini-datacenters deployed throughout the city, e.g., at bus stops. This load distribution reduces the risk of the ever-growing number of IoT devices overloading the data center. This thesis studies how to reorganise the process execution in this decentralised fashion, where processes must dynamically adapt to the volatile edge environment filled with moving devices. Namely, connectivity is intermittent, so decision-making and planning need to involve factors such as the movement trajectories of mobile devices. We examined this issue in simulations and with a prototype for Android smartphones. We also showcase the STEP-ONE toolset, allowing researchers to conveniently simulate and analyse these issues in different realistic scenarios, such as those in a smart city.  https://www.ester.ee/record=b552551

Development and management of collective network and cloud computing infrastructures

Pla de Doctorat industrial de la Generalitat de CatalunyaIn the search and development of more participatory models for infrastructure development and management, in this dissertation, we investigate models for the financing, deployment, and operation of network and cloud computing infrastructures. Our main concern is to overcome the inherent exclusion in participation in the processes of development and management and in the right of use in the current dominant models. Our work starts by studying in detail the model of Guifi.net, a successful bottom-up initiative for building network infrastructure, generally referred to as a community networks. We pay special attention to its governance system and economic organisation because we argue that these are the key components of the success of this initiative. Then, we generalise our findings for any community network, aiming at becoming sustainable and scalable, and we explore the suitability of the Guifi.net model to the cloud computing infrastructure. As a result of both, we coin the attribute extensible to refer to infrastructure that is relatively easy to expand and maintain in contrast to those naturally limited or hard to expand, such as natural resources or highly complex or advanced artificial systems. We conclude proposing a generic model which, in our opinion, is suitable, at least, for managing extensible infrastructure. The Guifi.net model is deeply rooted in the commons; thus, the research in this field, in general, and Elinor Ostrom’s work, in particular, have left a profound imprint in our work. Our results show that the \guifinet model meets almost entirely the principles of long-enduring commons identified by E. Ostrom. This work has been developed as an industrial doctorate. As such, it combines academic research with elements of practice and pursues an effective knowledge transfer between academia and the private sector. Given that the private sector’s partner is a not-for-profit organisation, the effort to create social value has prevailed over the ambition to advance the development of a specific industrial product or particular technology.En la recerca i desenvolupament de models més participatius per al desenvolupament i gestió d'infraestructura, en aquesta tesi investiguem sobre models per al finançament, desplegament i operació d'infraestructures de xarxa i de computació al núvol. La nostra preocupació principal és fer front a l’exclusió inherent dels models dominants actualment pel que fa a la participació en els processos de desenvolupament i gestió i, també, als drets d’us. El nostre treball comença amb un estudi detallat del model de Guifi.net, un cas d'èxit d'iniciativa ciutadana en la construcció d'infraestructura de xarxa, iniciatives que es coneixen com a xarxes comunitàries. En fer-ho, parem una atenció especial al sistema de governança i a l’organització econòmica perquè pensem que són els dos elements claus de l'èxit d'aquesta iniciativa. Tot seguit passem a analitzar d'altres xarxes comunitàries per abundar en la comprensió dels factors determinants per a la seva sostenibilitat i escalabilitat. Després ampliem el nostre estudi analitzant la capacitat i el comportament del model de Guifi.net en el camp de les infraestructures de computació al núvol. A resultes d'aquests estudis, proposem l'atribut extensible per a descriure aquelles infraestructures que són relativament fàcil d'ampliar i gestionar, en contraposició a les que o bé estan limitades de forma natural o be són difícils d'ampliar, com ara els recursos naturals o els sistemes artificials avançats o complexos. Finalitzem aquest treball fent una proposta de model genèric que pensem que és d'aplicabilitat, com a mínim, a tot tipus d'infraestructura extensible. El model de Guifi.net està fortament vinculat als bens comuns. És per això que la recerca en aquest àmbit, en general, i els treballs de Elinor Ostrom en particular, han deixat una forta empremta en el nostre treball. Els resultats que hem obtingut mostren que el model Guifi.net s'ajusta molt bé als principis que segons Ostrom han de complir els béns comuns per ser sostenibles. Aquest treball s'ha desenvolupat com a doctorat industrial. Com a tal, combina la investigació acadèmica amb elements de practica i persegueix una transferència efectiva de coneixement entre l'àmbit acadèmic i el sector privat. Ates que el soci del sector privat és una organització sense ànim de lucre, l’esforç per crear valor social ha prevalgut en l’ambició d’avançar en el desenvolupament d'un producte industrial específic o d'una tecnologia particularPostprint (published version