On the Guifi.net community network economics

How costs are distributed among the participants is a key question in the management and viability of shared resources. Although all cost-sharing mechanisms are subjective and thus it is eventually up to the participants to accept one or another, some general criteria seem desirable, such as being budget-balanced and that, in any case, a participant pays more when not cooperating with anyone else. In this paper, we analyse the cost-sharing mechanism that the Guifi.net community network has developed and put in practice to split the transit costs among their more than 20 participants for almost a decade. Our results show that the Guifi.net’s cost-sharing mechanism of the external connectivity, which comprises an equal membership fee for each participant plus a proportional distribution of the remaining costs according to the resource consumption, yields a cost assignment similar to the Shapley value. Our analysis also shows that any alternative to the coalition of all participants entails significant total cost increases and detrimental widespread cost allocation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Prototyping Incentive-based Resource Assignment for Clouds in Community Networks

Wireless community networks are a successful example of a collective where communities operate ICT infrastructure and provide IP connectivity based on the principle of reciprocal resource sharing of network bandwidth. This sharing, however, has not extended to computing and storage resources, resulting in very few applications and services which are currently deployed within community networks. Cloud computing, as in today's Internet, has made it common to consume resources provided by public clouds providers, but such cloud infrastructures have not materialized within community networks. We analyse in this paper socio-technical characteristics of community networks in order to derive scenarios for community clouds. Based on an architecture for such a community cloud, we implement a prototype for the incentive-driven resource assignment component, deploy it in a testbed of community network nodes, and evaluate its behaviour experimentally. Our evaluation gives insight into how the deployed prototype components regulate the consumption of cloud resources taking into account the users' contributions, and how this regulation affects the system usage. Our results suggest a further integration of this regulation component into current cloud management platforms in order to open them up for the operation of an ecosystem of community cloud

Towards distributed architecture for collaborative cloud services in community networks

Internet and communication technologies have lowered the costs for communities to collaborate, leading to new services like user-generated content and social computing, and through collaboration, collectively built infrastructures like community networks have also emerged. Community networks get formed when individuals and local organisations from a geographic area team up to create and run a community-owned IP network to satisfy the community’s demand for ICT, such as facilitating Internet access and providing services of local interest. The consolidation of today’s cloud technologies offers now the possibility of collectively built community clouds, building upon user-generated content and user-provided networks towards an ecosystem of cloud services. To address the limitation and enhance utility of community networks, we propose a collaborative distributed architecture for building a community cloud system that employs resources contributed by the members of the community network for provisioning infrastructure and software services. Such architecture needs to be tailored to the specific social, economic and technical characteristics of the community networks for community clouds to be successful and sustainable. By real deployments of clouds in community networks and evaluation of application performance, we show that community clouds are feasible. Our result may encourage collaborative innovative cloud-based services made possible with the resources of a community.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Gossip-based service monitoring platform for wireless edge cloud computing

Edge cloud computing proposes to support shared services, by using the infrastructure at the network's edge. An important problem is the monitoring and management of services across the edge environment. Therefore, dissemination and gathering of data is not straightforward, differing from the classic cloud infrastructure. In this paper, we consider the environment of community networks for edge cloud computing, in which the monitoring of cloud services is required. We propose a monitoring platform to collect near real-time data about the services offered in the community network using a gossip-enabled network. We analyze and apply this gossip-enabled network to perform service discovery and information sharing, enabling data dissemination among the community. We implemented our solution as a prototype and used it for collecting service monitoring data from the real operational community network cloud, as a feasible deployment of our solution. By means of emulation and simulation we analyze in different scenarios, the behavior of the gossip overlay solution, and obtain average results regarding information propagation and consistency needs, i.e. in high latency situations, data convergence occurs within minutes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Clouds of Small Things: Provisioning Infrastructure-as-a-Service from within Community Networks

Community networks offer a shared communication infrastructure where communities of citizens build and own open networks. While the IP connectivity of the networking devices is successfully achieved, the number of services and applications available from within the community network is typically small and the usage of the community network is often limited to providing Internet access to remote areas through wireless links. In this paper we propose to apply the principle of resource sharing of community networks, currently limited to the network bandwidth, to other computing resources, which leads to cloud computing in community networks. Towards this vision, we review some characteristics of community networks and identify potential scenarios for community clouds. We simulate a cloud computing infrastructure service and discuss different aspects of its performance in comparison to a commercial centralized cloud system. We note that in community clouds the computing resources are heterogeneous and less powerful, which affects the time needed to assign resources. Response time of the infrastructure service is high in community clouds even for a small number of resources since resources are distributed, but tends to get closer to that of a centralized cloud when the number of resources requested increases. Our initial results suggest that the performance of the community clouds highly depends on the community network conditions, but has some potential for improvement with network-aware cloud services. The main strength compared to commercial cloud services, however, is that community cloud services hosted on community-owned resources will follow the principles of community network and will be neutral and open

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

Development and management of collective network and cloud computing infrastructures

In 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 particula

Community Networks and Sustainability: a Survey of Perceptions, Practices, and Proposed Solutions

Community network (CN) initiatives have been around for roughly two decades, evangelizing a distinctly different paradigm for building, maintaining, and sharing network infrastructure but also defending the basic human right to Internet access. Over this time they have evolved into a mosaic of systems that vary widely with respect to their network technologies, their offered services, their organizational structure, and the way they position themselves in the overall telecommunications’ ecosystem. Common to all these highly differentiated initiatives is the sustainability challenge. We approach sustainability as a broad term with an economical, political, and cultural context. We first review the different perceptions of the term. These vary both across and within the different types of stakeholders involved in CNs and are reflected in their motivation to join such initiatives. Then, we study the diverse approaches of CN operators towards the sustainability goal. Given the rich context of the term, these range all the way from mechanisms to fund their activities, to organizational structures and social activities serving as incentives for the engagement of their members. We iterate on incentive mechanisms that have been proposed and theoretically analyzed in the literature for CNs as well as tools and processes that have been actually implemented in them. Finally, we enumerate lessons that have been learned out of these two decades of CNs’ operation and discuss additional technological and regulatory issues that are key to their longer-term sustainability

Cloudy in guifi.net: Establishing and sustaining a community cloud as open commons

Commons are natural or human-made resources that are managed cooperatively. The guifi.net community network is a successful example of a digital infrastructure, a computer network, managed as an open commons. Inspired by the guifi.net case and its commons governance model, we claim that a computing cloud, another digital infrastructure, can also be managed as an open commons if the appropriate tools are put in place. In this paper, we explore the feasibility and sustainability of community clouds as open commons: open user-driven clouds formed by community-managed computing resources. We propose organising the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) cloud service layers as common-pool resources (CPR) for enabling a sustainable cloud service provision. On this basis, we have outlined a governance framework for community clouds, and we have developed Cloudy, a cloud software stack that comprises a set of tools and components to build and operate community cloud services. Cloudy is tailored to the needs of the guifi.net community network, but it can be adopted by other communities. We have validated the feasibility of community clouds in a deployment in guifi.net of some 60 devices running Cloudy for over two years. To gain insight into the capacity of end-user services to generate enough value and utility to sustain the whole cloud ecosystem, we have developed a file storage application and tested it with a group of 10 guifi.net users. The experimental results and the experience from the action research confirm the feasibility and potential sustainability of the community cloud as an open commons.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Efficient provision of public goods in Spain

Treball Final de Grau en Economia. Codi: EC1049. Curs acadèmic: 2020/2021The work is oriented to analyze the management of common goods and resources in the Spanish context, taking the Elinor Ostrom approach. For this, a bibliographic review was carried out, establishing five steps where the topic-problem is defined and the research question is set. As part of the analysis and discussion, it was possible to determine that the Spanish context has as theoretical elements of management: collective governance, cultural identity, policies and norms, economic conception; Ostrom's suggested management principles are developed, with their particularities and scope; and there is a structure that characterizes the commons management approach with the following components: managerial, cultural, relational and economic. Hence, common management is considered a viable economic model that emerges as an alternative to the traditional market-state duality.El trabajo está orientado a analizar la gestión de bienes y recursos comunes en el contexto español, tomando el enfoque de Elinor Ostrom. Para ello, se hizo una revisión bibliográfica narrativa, estableciendo cinco pasos donde se define el tema-problema y se plantea la pregunta de investigación. Como parte del análisis y discusión se pudo determinar que del contexto español se tienen como elementos teóricos de la gestión: gobernanza colectiva, identidad cultura, políticas y normas, concepción económica; se desarrollan los principios de gestión sugeridos por Ostrom, con sus particularidades y alcances; y se dispone de una estructura que caracteriza el enfoque de gestión de comunes con los siguientes componentes: gerencial, cultural, relacional y económico. De allí que, la gestión de comunes es considerado un modelo económico viable que surge como alternativa a la dualidad tradicional mercado-Estado