A Knowledge-based Telemonitoring Platform for Application in Remote Healthcare

Telemonitoring systems have been shown to greatly reduce medical costs while improving the quality of medical care. Today, the main factors restricting the development and popularization of Telemonitoring systems include scalability and compatibility. The challenge for the remote healthcare lies in the variety of heterogeneous medical sensors which need to be dynamically removed or added to the environment according to the health care needs. This paper presents the design for an ontology-based context model and related middleware that provides a reusable and extensible application platform for Remote Healthcare. We designed the ontology context model to describe physiological parameters, medical tasks and the patient’s personal profile. Developers may extend the ontology model by considering new requirements as needed

A REVIEW STUDY OF EUROPEAN R&D PROJECTS FOR SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS IN 5G/6G ERA

Κατά τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες τα δορυφορικά συστήματα τηλεπικοινωνιών έχουν προσφέρει μια γκάμα από πολυμεσικές υπηρεσίες όπως δορυφορική τηλεόραση, δορυφορική τηλεφωνία και ευρυζωνική πρόσβαση στο διαδίκτυο. Οι μακροπρόθεσμες τεχνολογικές αναβαθμίσεις σε συνδυασμό με την προσθήκη νέων δορυφορικών συστημάτων γεωστατικής και ελλειπτικής τροχιάς και με την ενσωμάτωση τεχνολογιών πληροφορικής έχουν ωθήσει την αύξηση του μέγιστου εύρους των δορυφόρων στο 1Gbps σε μεμονωμένους δορυφόρους ενώ σε διάταξη αστερισμού μπορούν να ξεπεράσουν το 1 Tbps. Σε συνδυασμό με την μείωση του χρόνου απόκρισης σε ρυθμούς ανταγωνιστικούς με τις χερσαίες υποδομές ανοίγουν νέες ευκαιρίες και νέους ρόλους εντός ενός οικοσυστήματος ετερογενούς δικτύων 5ης γενιάς. Σε αυτήν την διατριβή, αξιολογούμε επιδοτούμενα επιστημονικά προγράμματα έρευνας και ανάπτυξης της Ευρωπαϊκής Επιτροπής Διαστήματος (ESA) και του προγράμματος επιδότησης Horizon 2020 της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, προκειμένου να εξηγήσουμε τις δυνατότητες των δορυφόρων εντός ενός ετερογενούς δικτύου 5ης γενιάς, αναφέρουμε συγκεκριμένα αυτά που αφορούν την εξέλιξη των δορυφορικών ψηφιακών συστημάτων και την ικανότητα ενσωμάτωσης τους σε τωρινές αλλά και μελλοντικές υποδομές χερσαίων τηλεπικοινωνιακών δικτύων μέσω της εμφάνισης νέων τεχνολογιών στις ηλεκτρονικές και οπτικές επικοινωνίες αέρος μαζί με την εμφάνιση τεχνολογιών πληροφορικής όπως της δικτύωσης βασισμένης στο λογισμικό και της εικονικοποίησης λειτουργιών δικτύου. Αναφερόμαστε στους στόχους του κάθε project ξεχωριστά και κατηγοριοποιημένα στους ακόλουθους τομείς έρευνας: -Συσσωμάτωση των δορυφόρων με τα επίγεια δίκτυα 5ης γενιάς με οργανωμένες μελέτες και στρατηγικές -Ενσωμάτωση των τεχνολογιών δικτύωσης βασισμένης στο λογισμικό και εικονικοποίησης λειτουργιών δικτύου στο δορυφορικών τμήμα των δικτύων 5ης γενιάς -Ο ρόλος των δορυφόρων σε εφαρμογές του διαδικτύου των πραγμάτων σε συνάφεια με τα χερσαία δίκτυα 5ης γενιάς -Ο ρόλος των δορυφόρων στην δίκτυα διανομής πολυμεσικού περιεχομένου & η επιρροή των πρωτοκόλλων διαδικτύου στην ποιότητα υπηρεσίας χρήστη κατά την διάρκεια μιας δορυφορικής σύνδεσης. -Μελλοντικές βελτιώσεις και εφαρμογές στα δορυφορικά συστήματα με έμφαση στα μελλοντικά πρότυπα του φυσικό επιπέδου Στο τέλος διαθέτουμε ένα παράρτημα που αφορά τεχνικές αναλύσεις στην εξέλιξη του φυσικού επιπέδου των δορυφορικών συστημάτων, συνοδευόμενο με την συσχετιζόμενη βιβλιογραφία για περαιτέρω μελέτη.Over the last decades satellite telecommunication systems offer many types of multimedia services like Satellite TV, telephony and broadband internet access. The long-term technological evolutions occurred into state-of-the-art satellite systems altogether with the addition of new high throughput geostatic and non-geostatic systems, individual satellites can now achieve a peak bandwidth of up to Gbps, and with possible extension into satellite constellation systems the total capacity can reach up to Tbps. Supplementary, with systems latency being comparable to terrestrial infrastructures and with integration of several computer science technologies, satellite systems can achieve new & more advanced roles inside a heterogeneous 5G network’s ecosystem. In this thesis, we have studied European Space Agency (ESA’s) and European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020 Research and Development (R&D) funded projects in order to describe the satellite capabilities within a 5G heterogeneous network, mentioning the impact of the evolution of digital satellite communications and furthermore the integration with the state-of the art & future terrain telecommunication systems by new technologies occurred through the evolution of electronic & free space optical communications alongside with the integration of computer science’s technologies like Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In order to describe this evolution we have studied the concepts of each individual project, categorized chronically and individual by its scientific field of research. Our main scientific trends for this thesis are: -Satellite Integration studies & strategies into the 5G terrestrial networks -Integration of SDN and NFV technologies on 5G satellite component -Satellite’s role in the Internet of Things applications over 5G terrestrial networks -Satellite’s role in Content Distribution Networks & internet protocols impact over user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) over a satellite link -The future proposals upon the evolution of Satellite systems by upcoming improvements and corresponding standards Finally, we have created an Annex for technical details upon the evolution of physical layer of the satellite systems with the corresponding bibliography of this thesis for future study

The bridge of dreams::Towards a method for operational performance alignment in IT-enabled service supply chains

Concerns on performance alignment, especially on business-IT alignment, have been around for three decades. It is still considered to be one of the most important driving forces for business success, as well as one of the top concerns of many practitioners and organizational researchers. It is also found to be a major issue in two thirds of digital transformation projects. Many attempts from researchers in diverse disciplines have been made to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, they have been working separately and the research appears in various forms and names. This dissertation presents a piece of interdisciplinary research that focuses on identifying operational performance alignment issues, discovering and assessing their root causes with attention to the dynamics in operating IT-enabled service supply chain (SSC). It makes a modest contribution by providing a communication-centred instrument which can modularize complex SSC in terms of a hierarchically-structured set of services and analyze the performance causality between them. With a special focus on the impact of IT, it makes it possible to monitor and tune various performance issues in SSC. This research intends to provide a solution-oriented common ground where multiple service research streams can meet together. Following the framework proposed in this research, services, at different tiers of an SSC, are modelled with a balanced perspective on both business, technical service components and KPIs. It allows a holistic picture of service performances and interactions throughout the entire supply chain to be viewed through a different research lens and permits the causal impact of technology, business strategy, and service operations on supply chain performance to be unveiled

Monitoring and testing in LTE networks: from experimental analysis to operational optimisation

L'avvento di LTE e LTE-Adavanced, e la loro integrazione con le esistenti tecnologie cellulari, GSM e UMTS, ha costretto gli operatori di rete radiomobile ad eseguire una meticolosa campagna di test e a dotarsi del giusto know-how per rilevare potenziali problemi durante il dispiegamento di nuovi servizi. In questo nuovo scenario di rete, la caratterizzazione e il monitoraggio del traffico nonchè la configurazione e l'affidibilità degli apparati di rete, sono di importanza fondamentale al fine di prevenire possibili insidie durante la distribuzione di nuovi servizi e garantire la migliore esperienza utente possibile. Sulla base di queste osservazioni, questa tesi di dottorato offre un percorso completo di studio che va da un'analisi sperimentale ad un'ottimizzazione operativa. Il punto di partenza del nostro lavoro è stato il monitoraggio del traffico di un eNodeB di campo con tre celle, operativo nella banda 1800 MHz. Tramite campagne di misura successive, è stato possibile seguire l'evoluzione della rete 4G dagli albori del suo dispiegamento nel 2012, fino alla sua completa maturazione nel 2015. I dati raccolti durante il primo anno, evidenziavano uno scarso utilizzo della rete LTE, dovuto essenzialmente alla limitata penetrazione dei nuovi smartphone 4G. Nel 2015, invece, abbiamo assistito ad un aumento netto e decisivo del numero di utenti che utilizzano la tecnolgia LTE, con statistiche aggregate (come gli indici di marketshare per i sistemi operativi degli smartphones, o la percentuale di traffico video) che rispecchiano i trend nazionali e internazionali. Questo importante risultato testimonia la maturità della tecnologia LTE, e ci permette di considerare il nostro eNodeB un punto di osservazione prezioso per l'analisi del traffico. Di pari passo con l'evoluzione dell'infrastruttura, anche i telefoni cellulari hanno avuto una sorprendente evoluzione nel corso degli ultimi due decenni, a partire da dispositivi semplici con servizi di sola voce, fino agli smartphone di ultima generazione che offrono servizi innovativi, come Internet mobile, geolocalizzazione e mappe, servizi multimediali, e molti altri. Monitorare il traffico reale ci ha quindi permesso di studiare il comportamento degli utenti e individuare i servizi maggiormente utilizzati. Per questo, sono state sviluppate diverse librerie software per l'analisi del traffico. In particolare, è stato sviluppato in C++14 un framework/tool per la classificazione del traffico. Il progetto, disponibile su github, si chiama MOSEC, un acronimo per MOdular SErvice Classifier. MOSEC consente di definire e utilizzare un numero arbitrario di plug-in, che processano il pacchetto secondo le loro logiche e possono o no ritornare un valore di classificazione. Una strategia di decisione finale consente di classificare i vari flussi, basandosi sulle classificazioni di ciascun plug-in. Abbiamo quindi validato la bontà del processi di classificazione di MOSEC utilizzando una traccia labellata come ground-truth di classificazione. I risultati mostrano una eccellente capacità di classificazione di traffico TCP-HTTP/HTTPS, mediamente superiore a quella di altri tool di classificazione (nDPI, PACE, Layer-7), ed evidenzia alcune lacune per quanto riguarda la classificazione di traffico UDP. Le carattistiche dei flussi di traffico utente (User Plane) hanno un impatto diretto sul consumo energetico dei terminali e indiretto sul traffico di controllo (Control Plane) che viene generato. Pertanto, la conoscenza delle proprietà statistiche dei vari flussi consente di affrontare un problema del cross-layer optimization, per ridurre il consumo energetico dei terminali variando dei parametri configurabili sugli eNodeB. E' noto che la durata della batteria dei nuovi smartphone, rappresenta uno dei maggiori limiti nell'utilizzo degli stessi. In particolare, lo sviluppo di nuovi servizi e applicazioni capaci di lavorare in background, senza la diretta interazione dell’utente, ha introdotto nuovi problemi riguardanti la durata delle batterie degli smartphone e il traffico di segnalazione necessario ad acquisire/rilasciare le risorse radio. In conformità a queste osservazioni, è stato condotto uno studio approfondito sul meccanismo DRX (Discontinuous Reception), usato in LTE per consentire all’utente di risparmiare energia quando nessun pacchetto è inviato o ricevuto. I parametri DRX e RRC Inactivity Timer influenzano notevolmente l’energia consumata dai vari device. A seconda che le risorse radio siano assegnate o meno, l’UE si trova rispettivamente negli stati di RRC Connected e RRC Idle. Per valutare il consumo energetico degli smartphone, è stato sviluppato un algoritmo che associa un valore di potenza a ciascuno degli stati in cui l’UE può trovarsi. La transizione da uno stato all’altro è regolata da diversi timeout che sono resettati ogni volta che un pacchetto è inviato o ricevuto. Utilizzando le tracce di traffico reale, è stata associata una macchina a stati a ogni UE per valutare il consumo energetico sulla base dei pacchetti inviati e ricevuti. Osservando le caratteristiche statistiche del traffico User Plane è stata ripetuta la simulazione utilizzando dei valori dell’Inactivity Timer diversi da quello impiegato negli eNodeB di rete reale, alla ricerca di un buon trade-off tra risparmio energetico e aumento del traffico di segnalazione. I risultati hanno permesso di determinare che l'Inactivity Timer, settato originariamente sull'eNodeB era troppo elevato e determinava un consumo energetico eccesivo sui terminali. Diminuendone il valore fino a 10 secondi, si può ottenere un risparmio energetico fino al 50\% (a secondo del traffico generato) senza aumentare considerevolemente il traffico di controllo. I risultati dello studio di cui sopra, tuttavia, non tengono in considerazione lo stato di stress cui può essere sottoposto un eNodeB per effetto dell'aumento del traffico di segnalazione, nè, tantomeno, dell'aumento della contesa di accesso alla rete durante la procedura di RACH, necessaria per ristabilire il bearer radio (o connessione RRC) tra terminale ed eNodeB. Valutare le performance di sistemi hardware e software per la rete mobile di quarta generazione, cosi come individuare qualsiasi possibile debolezza all’interno dell’architettura, è un lavoro complesso. Un possibile caso di studio, è proprio quello di valutare la robustezza delle Base Station quando riceve molte richieste di connessioni RRC, per effetto di una diminuzione dell'Inactivity Timer. A tal proposito, all’interno del Testing LAB di Telecom Italia, abbiamo utilizzato IxLoad, un prodotto sviluppato da Ixia, come generatore di carico per testare la robustezza di un eNodeB. I test sono consistiti nel produrre un differente carico di richieste RRC sull'interfaccia radio, similmente a quelle che si avrebbero diminuendo l'Inactivity Timer. Le proprietà statistiche del traffico di controllo sono ricavate a partire dall'analisi dalle tracce di traffico reale. I risultati hanno dimostrato che, anche a fronte di un carico sostenuto di richieste RRC solo una minima parte (percentuale inferiore all'1\% nel caso più sfavorevole) di procedure fallisce. Abbassare l'inactivity timer anche a valori inferiori ai 10 secondi non è quindi un problema per la Base Station. Rimane da valutare, infine, cosa succede a seguito dell'aumento delle richieste di accesso al canale RACH, dal punto di vista degli utenti. Quando due o più utenti tentano, simultaneamente, di accedere al canale RACH, utilizzando lo stesso preambolo, l’eNodeB potrebbe non essere in grado di decifrare il preambolo. Se i due segnali interferiscono costruttivamente, entrambi gli utenti riceveranno le stesse risorse per trasmettere il messaggio di RRC Request e, a questo punto, l’eNodeB può individuare la collisione e non trasmetterà nessun acknowledgement, forzando entrambi gli utenti a ricominciare la procedura dall’inizio. Abbiamo quindi proposto un modello analitico per calcolare la probabilità di collisione in funzione del numero di utenti e del carico di traffico offerto, quando i tempi d’interarrivo tra richieste successive é modellata con tempi iper-esponenziali. In più, abbiamo investigato le prestazioni di comunicazioni di tipo Machine-to-Machine (M2M) e Human-to-Human (H2H), valutando, al variare del numero di preamboli utilizzati, la probabilità di collisione su canale RACH, la probabilità di corretta trasmissione considerando sia il tempo di backoff che il numero massimo di ritrasmissioni consentite, e il tempo medio necessario per stabilire un canale radio con la rete di accesso. I risultati, valutati nel loro insieme, hanno consentito di esprimere delle linee guida per ripartire opportunamente il numero di preamboli tra comunicazioni M2M e H2H. The advent of LTE and LTE-Advanced, and their integration with existing cellular technologies, GSM and UMTS, has forced the mobile radio network operators to perform meticulous tests and adopt the right know-how to detect potential new issues, before the activation of new services. In this new network scenario, traffic characterisation and monitoring as well as configuration and on-air reliability of network equipment, is of paramount relevance in order to prevent possible pitfalls during the deployment of new services and ensure the best possible user experience. Based on this observation, this research project offers a comprehensive study that goes from experimental analysis to operational optimization. The starting point of our work has been monitoring the traffic of an already deployed eNodeB with three cells, operative in the 1800 MHz band. Through subsequent measurement campaigns, it was possible to follow the evolution of the 4G network by the beginning of its deployment in 2012, until its full maturity in 2015. The data collected during the first year, showed a poor use of the LTE network, mainly due to the limited penetration of new 4G smartphone. In 2015, however, we appreciate a clear and decisive increase in the number of terminals using LTE, with aggregate statistics (e.g. marketshare for smartphone operating systems, or the percentage of video traffic) that reflect the national trend. This important outcome testifies the maturity of LTE technology, and allows us to consider our monitored eNodeB as a valuable vantage point for traffic analysis. Hand in hand with the evolution of the infrastructure, even mobile phones have had a surprising evolution over the past two decades, from simple devices with only voice services, towards smartphones offering novel services such as mobile Internet, geolocation and maps, multimedia services, and many more. Monitoring the real traffic has allowed us to study the users behavior and identify the services most used. To this aim, various software libraries for traffic analysis have been developed. In particular, we developed a C/C++ library that analyses Control Plane and User Plane traffic, which provides corse and fined-grained statistics at flow-level. Another framework/tool has been exclusively dedicated to the topic of traffic classification. Among the plethora of existing tool for traffic classification we provide our own solution, developed from scratch. The project, which is available on github, is named MOSEC, an acronym for Modular SErvice Classifier. The modularity is given by the possibility to implement multiple plug-ins, each one will process the packet according to its logic, and may or may not return a packet/flow classification. A final decision strategy allows to classify the various streams, based on the classifications of each plug-in. Despite previous approaches, the ability of keeping together multiple classifiers allows to mitigate the deficiency of each classifiers (e.g. DPI\nomenclature{DPI}{Deep Packet Inspection} does not work when packets are encrypted or DNS\nomenclature{DNS}{Domain Name Server} queries don't have to be sent if name resolution is cached in device memory) and exploit their full-capabilities when it is feasible. We validated the goodness of MOSEC using a labelled trace synthetically created by colleagues from UPC BarcelonaTech. The results show excellent TCP-HTTP/HTTPS traffic classification capabilities, higher, on average, than those of other classification tools (NDPI, PACE, Layer-7). On the other hand, there are some shortcomings with regard to the classification of UDP traffic. The characteristics of User Plane traffic have a direct impact on the energy consumed by the handset devices, and an indirect impact on the Control Plane traffic that is generated. Therefore, the acquaintances of the statistical properties of the various flows, allows us to deal with the problem of cross-layer optimization, that is reducing the power consumption of the terminals by varying some control plane parameters configurable on the eNodeB. It is well known that the battery life of the new smartphones is one of the major limitations in the use of the same. In particular, the birth of new services and applications capable of working in the background without direct user interaction, introduced new issues related to the battery lifetime and the signaling traffic necessary to acquire/release the radio resources. Based on these observations, we conducted a thorough study on the DRX mechanism (Discontinuous Reception), exploited by LTE to save smartphones energy when no packet is sent or received. The DRX configuration set and the RRC Inactivity Timer greatly affect the energy consumed by the various devices. Depending on which radio resources are allocated or not, the user equipment is in the states of RRC Connected and Idle, respectively. To evaluate the energy consumption of smartphones, an algorithm simulates the transition between all the possible states in which an UE can be and maps a power value to each of these states. The transition from one state to another is governed by different timeouts that are reset every time a packet is sent or received. Using the traces of real traffic, we associate a state machine to each for assessing the energy consumption on the basis of the sent and received packets. We repeated these simulations using different values of the inactivity timer, that appear to be more suitable than the one currently configured on the monitored eNodeB, looking for a good trade-off between energy savings and increased signaling traffic. The results highlighted that the Inactivity Timer set originally sull'eNodeB was too high and determined an excessive energy consumption on the terminals. Reducing the value up to 10 seconds permits to achieve energy savings of up to 50\% (depending on the underling traffic profile) without up considerably the control traffic. The results of the study mentioned above, however, do not consider neither the stress level which the eNodeB is subject to, given the raise of signaling traffic that could occur, nor the increase of collision probability during the RACH procedure, needed to re-establish the radio bearer (or RRC connection ) between the terminal and eNodeB . Evaluate the performance of hardware and software systems for the fourth-generation mobile network, as well as identify any possible weakness in the architecture, it is a complex job. A possible case study, is precisely to assess the robustness of the base station when it receives many requests for RRC connections, as effect of a decrease of the inactivity timer. In this regard, within the Testing LAB of Telecom Italia, we used IxLoad, a product developed by Ixia, as a load generator to test the robustness of one eNodeB. The tests consisted in producing a different load of RRC request on the radio interface, similar to those that would be produced by decreasing the inactivity timer to certain values. The statistical properties for the signalling traffic are derived from the analysis of real traffic traces. The main outcomes have shown that, even in the face of an high load of RRC requests only a small part (less than 1\% in the most unfavorable of the cases) of the procedure fails. Therefore, even lowering the inactivity timer at values lower than 10 seconds is not an issue for the Base Station. Finally, remains to be evaluated how such surge of RRC request impacts on users performance. If one of the users under coverage in the RRC Idle is paged for an incoming packet or need to send an uplink packet a state transition from RRC Idle to RRC Connected is needed. At this point, the UE initiates the random access procedure by sending the random access channel preamble (RACH Preamble). When two or more users attempt, simultaneously, to access the RACH channel, using the same preamble, the eNodeB may not be able to decipher the preamble. If the two signals interfere constructively, both users receive the same resources for transmitting the RRC Request message and, at this point, the eNodeB can detect the collision and will not send any acknowledgment, forcing both users to restart the procedure from the beginning. We have proposed an analytical model to calculate the probability of a collision based on the number of users and the offered traffic load, when the interarrival time between requests is modeled with hyper-exponential times. In addition, we investigated some performance for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Human-to-Human (H2H) type communications, including the probability of correct transmission considering either the backoff time either the maximum number of allowed retransmissions, and the average time required to established a radio bearer with the access network. The results, considered as a whole, have made possible to express the guidelines to properly distribute the number of preambles in H2H and M2M communications

Contribution to energy consumption modelling and forecast in next generation access networks

La contribución del sector de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones (TICs) al consumo de energía a nivel global se ha visto incrementada considerablemente en la última década al mismo tiempo que su relevancia dentro de la economía global. Se prevé que esta tendencia continúe debido al uso cada vez más intensivo de estas tecnologías. Una de las principales causas es el tráfico de datos de banda ancha generado por el uso de las redes de telecomunicaciones. De hecho como respuesta a esta demanda de recursos por parte de los usuarios, de la industria de las telecomunicaciones está iniciando el despliegue de las redes de nueva generación. En cualquier caso, el consumo de energía es un factor generalmente ausente del debate sobre el despliegue de estas tecnologías, a pesar de la posible repercusión que pueda llegar a tener en los costes y la sostenibilidad de estos proyectos. A lo largo de este trabajo se desarrollan modelos para evaluar el consumo energético de las redes de acceso de nueva generación (NGAN). Estos servirán tanto para llevar a cabo cálculos en un escenario global estático, como en cualquiera otro que determine la potencial evolución de la red de acceso a lo largo de su despliegue. Estos modelos combinan tres factores: la penetración prospectiva de cada una de las tecnologías de banda ancha analizadas, el tráfico generado por usuario y su futura evolución, y el perfil de consumo de energía de cada uno de los dispositivos de red desplegados. Tras evaluar los resultados derivados de la aplicación de los modelos en el caso demográfico específico de España, se obtienen conclusiones acerca de las diferencias tecnológicas en cuanto al consumo energético, sus implicaciones económicas, y la sensibilidad de los cálculos atendiendo a posibles modificaciones en los valores de referencia de diferentes parámetros de diseño. Se destaca por tanto el efecto en el consumo energético de los desarrollos tecnológicos, tecno-económicos, y de las decisiones en el ámbito regulatorio. Aunque como se ha dicho, se ha ejemplificado el cálculo para un caso particular, tanto los modelos como las conclusiones extraídas se pueden extrapolar a otros países similares

Games as Services - Final Report

The ultra competitive nature of global game industry, characterized by spiraling production times and development costs, has in the recent times forced the game developers to search for alternative approaches. As a consequence, digital distribution systems, subscription-based models and micro-transactions have challenged the traditional circuits of game development, play and distribution. A common theme across the transformations ranging from persistent game worlds and casual games to automatic content updates and player-created content is that they make games, more or less, available "as services". The need for a particular research project examining the rise of the service paradigm among game industry was identified already in relation the Neogames centre surveys conducted in 2007. The Finnish game industry representatives were widely aware of the change towards service-driven models but the individual game studios had no resources for a larger analysis. The practical objectives of the Games as Services (GaS) project are motivated from this background. The project, conducted in collaboration between the University of Tampere Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media (INFIM) and The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), has aimed at producing an overview on the nature of the service paradigm and its consequences to games, game culture and business. In addition, individual case studies have been conducted in order to shed light on particularly interesting subthemes. During the project's timeframe (2008-10), the core themes of the GaS have only increased in relevance and visibility. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the online games market of games, including subscription, digital game download, DLC, virtual commodities and value-added services is steadily expanding (PwC 2009). Secondly, with the advent of casual and social games, entirely new audiences have been introduced to digital games. Players are not so much asked to structure their lives to fit the demands of a game (Juul 2009). Instead, the games are increasingly designed to serve the players and to fit into their lives. In the age of "contextual gaming", play is increasingly tied to the practices and rhythms of everyday life and playful behaviors are often rooted in social relations and exchanges of information that are used to maintain and expand the networks of relationships (Mäyrä 2008). Many signs indicate that the days of digital games packaged as "fire and forget" commodities are numbered. The global game industry is actively moving from providing discrete offerings towards establishing ongoing relationships with players (Chang 2010, 24). Not all games will be based on a constant update model, but even the more traditional releases will be transformed after the launch by patches, upgrades, expansions and modifications. The development budgets are forecast to reflect this change, as significant investments are moved from the launch to operating the ongoing service. The transitions described are not entirely unique to the games market but similar developments can be identified in other media markets. It is, however, noticeable how easily and successfully many sectors of gaming have already shifted towards a service-based economy. In this respect, all the traditional media industries have a lesson or two to learn from games as services (ibid.)