S-FaaS: Trustworthy and Accountable Function-as-a-Service using Intel SGX

Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) is a recent and already very popular paradigm in cloud computing. The function provider need only specify the function to be run, usually in a high-level language like JavaScript, and the service provider orchestrates all the necessary infrastructure and software stacks. The function provider is only billed for the actual computational resources used by the function invocation. Compared to previous cloud paradigms, FaaS requires significantly more fine-grained resource measurement mechanisms, e.g. to measure compute time and memory usage of a single function invocation with sub-second accuracy. Thanks to the short duration and stateless nature of functions, and the availability of multiple open-source frameworks, FaaS enables non-traditional service providers e.g. individuals or data centers with spare capacity. However, this exacerbates the challenge of ensuring that resource consumption is measured accurately and reported reliably. It also raises the issues of ensuring computation is done correctly and minimizing the amount of information leaked to service providers. To address these challenges, we introduce S-FaaS, the first architecture and implementation of FaaS to provide strong security and accountability guarantees backed by Intel SGX. To match the dynamic event-driven nature of FaaS, our design introduces a new key distribution enclave and a novel transitive attestation protocol. A core contribution of S-FaaS is our set of resource measurement mechanisms that securely measure compute time inside an enclave, and actual memory allocations. We have integrated S-FaaS into the popular OpenWhisk FaaS framework. We evaluate the security of our architecture, the accuracy of our resource measurement mechanisms, and the performance of our implementation, showing that our resource measurement mechanisms add less than 6.3% latency on standardized benchmarks

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

Human factors in space telepresence

The problems of interfacing a human with a teleoperation system, for work in space are discussed. Much of the information presented here is the result of experience gained by the M.I.T. Space Systems Laboratory during the past two years of work on the ARAMIS (Automation, Robotics, and Machine Intelligence Systems) project. Many factors impact the design of the man-machine interface for a teleoperator. The effects of each are described in turn. An annotated bibliography gives the key references that were used. No conclusions are presented as a best design, since much depends on the particular application desired, and the relevant technology is swiftly changing

On the Scalability of Constraint Programming on Hierarchical Multiprocessor Systems

Recent developments in computer architecture progress towards systems with large core count, which expose more parallelism to applications, creating a hierarchical setup at the node and cluster levels. To take advantage of all this parallelism, applications must carefully exploit the different levels of the system which, if ignored, may yield surprising results. This aggravates the already difficult task of parallel programming. Declarative approaches such as those based on constraints are attractive to parallel programming because they concentrate on the logic of the problem. They have been successfully applied to hard problems, which usually involve searching through large problem spaces, a computationally intensive task but with potential for parallelization. Tree search algorithms play an important role in research areas such as constraint satisfaction or optimisation, and artificial intelligence. Tree search lends itself naturally to parallelization by exploiting different branches of the tree but scalability may be harder to achieve due to the high dynamic load balancing requirements. In this paper we present a high-level declarative approach based on constraints and show how it benefits from an efficient dynamic load balancing based on work stealing targeted at large-scale. We focus on the implementation of a hierarchical work stealing scheme using a different programming model, GPI. Experimentation brought encouraging results on up to 512 cores on large instances of satisfaction and optimisation problems

EMICOM: Enhanced Media Independent COnnection Manager

With the increasing amount of mobile interfaces combining different kinds of access technologies, ranging from Wi-Fi to 3G and LTE, the integration of flexible and mediaindependent link control mechanisms becomes of paramount importance. By employing an abstract way of obtaining access link status information and exercising control over the network interface operations, these control mechanisms become able to optimize device connectivity and network attachment. This paper presents EMICOM, an Enhanced Media Independent COnnection Manager framework where a GNU/Linux Network Manager and Link Service Access Points for the IEEE 802.3 and 802.11 technologies were implemented and integrated through crosslayer Media Independent Handover (MIH) mechanisms from the IEEE 802.21 standard. Through an open-source implementation of the framework, the (MIH) command set capabilities are extended, allowing the support of network association and authentication, as well as Layer 3 services such as IP configuration, providing a generic solution for optimal network connectivity management

Ada (trademark) projects at NASA. Runtime environment issues and recommendations

Ada practitioners should use this document to discuss and establish common short term requirements for Ada runtime environments. The major current Ada runtime environment issues are identified through the analysis of some of the Ada efforts at NASA and other research centers. The runtime environment characteristics of major compilers are compared while alternate runtime implementations are reviewed. Modifications and extensions to the Ada Language Reference Manual to address some of these runtime issues are proposed. Three classes of projects focusing on the most critical runtime features of Ada are recommended, including a range of immediately feasible full scale Ada development projects. Also, a list of runtime features and procurement issues is proposed for consideration by the vendors, contractors and the government

Assessing load-sharing within optimistic simulation platforms

The advent of multi-core machines has lead to the need for revising the architecture of modern simulation platforms. One recent proposal we made attempted to explore the viability of load-sharing for optimistic simulators run on top of these types of machines. In this article, we provide an extensive experimental study for an assessment of the effects on run-time dynamics by a load-sharing architecture that has been implemented within the ROOT-Sim package, namely an open source simulation platform adhering to the optimistic synchronization paradigm. This experimental study is essentially aimed at evaluating possible sources of overheads when supporting load-sharing. It has been based on differentiated workloads allowing us to generate different execution profiles in terms of, e.g., granularity/locality of the simulation events. © 2012 IEEE