OpenCache:a content delivery platform for the modern internet

Since its inception, the World Wide Web has revolutionised the way we share information, keep in touch with each other and consume content. In the latter case, it is now used by thousands of simultaneous users to consume video, surpassing physical media as the primary means of distribution. With the rise of on-demand services and more recently, high-definition media, this popularity has not waned. To support this consumption, the underlying infrastructure has been forced to evolve at a rapid pace. This includes the technology and mechanisms to facilitate the transmission of video, which are now offered at varying levels of quality and resolution. Content delivery networks are often deployed in order to scale the distribution provision. These vary in nature and design; from third-party providers running entirely as a service to others, to in-house solutions owned by the content service providers themselves. However, recent innovations in networking and virtualisation, namely Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualisation, have paved the way for new content delivery infrastructure designs. In this thesis, we discuss the motivation behind OpenCache, a next-generation content delivery platform. We examine how we can leverage these emerging technologies to provide a more flexible and scalable solution to content delivery. This includes analysing the feasibility of novel redirection techniques, and how these compare to existing means. We also investigate the creation of a unified interface from which a platform can be precisely controlled, allowing new applications to be created that operate in harmony with the infrastructure provision. Developments in distributed virtualisation platforms also enables functionality to be spread throughout a network, influencing the design of OpenCache. Through a prototype implementation, we evaluate each of these facets in a number of different scenarios, made possible through deployment on large-scale testbeds

Combinatorial Auction-Based Resource Allocation in the Fog

Network service composition is becoming increasingly flexible, thanks in part to advances in virtualisation and cloud technologies. As these penetrate further into networks, providers are often looking to leverage this infrastructure to improve their service delivery. This desire poses a number of obstacles, including a diversity in device capabilities and the need for a value exchange mechanism. In this demonstration, we present a platform that seeks to address a selection of these challenges

Siren:A platform for deploying virtual network services in the cloud to Fog continuum

The burden put on network infrastructures is changing. The increasing number of connected devices, along with growing demand, are creating an unsustainable future for the Internet. The recently introduced concept of Fog computing predicts a future Internet where general compute power is ubiquitous, extending the Cloud right the way to the network edge. In turn, this acts as a catalyst for Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), increasing the potential infrastructure locations for deploying new services, specifically ones that can cater to the demands of the changing Internet. However, current realisations of NFV typically host network functions in homogeneous, centralised servers in Cloud infrastructures. This is in contrast to the Fog where environments are both distributed and heterogeneous, thus current management and orchestration platforms suffer from suboptimal service deployment. With the use of a multiple use cases, and a novel auctioning orchestration method, this paper presents Siren, which is an orchestrator for network functions in the Cloud to Fog continuum

Digital Authoring of Interactive Public Display Applications

HbbTV (Hybrid broadcast broadband TV) is an emerging force in the entertainment industry, and proper standarisation of technologies would be hugely beneficial for the creation of content. HbbTV aims to realise this vision and has been widely successful thus far. This paper introduces the MPAT (Multi Platform Application Toolkit) project, which is the result of multiple organisational entities effort and dedication to extend the capabilities and functionality of HbbTV, in order to ease the design and creation of interactive TV applications. The paper also showcases the versatility of MPAT, by describing a series of case studies which provide digital storytelling and visual authoring of interactive applications which transcend traditional TV use cases, and instead provide a gripping interactive experience via integration with public displays

“Sustainability... it’s just not important.”:The Challenges of Academic Engagement with Diverse Stakeholders

Research at the intersection of sustainability and computing often engages with external stakeholders, and those engagements can determine success and impact of the sustainable goals as well as the entire research. In this paper, we reflect on various stakeholder en- gagements to derive lessons for the ICT4S community that seeks to broaden its sustainable impact beyond their own field. We briefly describe our experiences with case studies from each of the individual author’s research, and then synthesize across those experiences to reflect on similarities and differences. The resulting discussion highlights what we feel were our important lessons learned, as well as some of our thoughts on how to approach collab- orations or deployments with external stakeholders in sustainable computing projects