“Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning for Prediction-Based Network Slice Mobility in 6G Mobile Networks” Journal Paper

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Network slices are generally coupled with services and face service continuity/unavailability concerns due to the high mobility and dynamic requests from users. Network slice mobility (NSM), which considers user mobility, service migration, and resource allocation from a holistic view, is witnessed as a key technology in enabling network slices to respond quickly to service degradation. Existing studies on NSM either ignored the trigger detection before NSM decision-making or didn’t consider the prediction of future system information to improve the NSM performance, and the training of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agents also faces challenges with incomplete observations. To cope with these challenges, we consider that network slices migrate periodically and utilize the prediction of system information to assist NSM decision-making. The periodical NSM problem is further transformed into a Markov decision process, and we creatively propose a prediction-based federated DRL framework to solve it. Particularly, the learning processes of the prediction model and DRL agents are performed in a federated learning paradigm. Based on extensive experiments, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms the considered baseline schemes in improving long-term profit, reducing communication overhead, and saving transmission time.

“Real-time Container Orchestration based on Time utility Functions” paper presentation

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Stefan Walser from TTTech Computertechnik AG, presented the paper “Real-time Container Orchestration based on Time utility Functions” at 2024 IEEE WFCS in Toulouse. WFCS is the largest IEEE conference especially dedicated to communications for (industrial) automation systems. Its main aim is to provide a forum for researchers, developers and practitioners to review and discuss most recent trends in the area and share innovative research directions.
https://wfcs24.inviteo.fr/

“How many FIDO protocols are needed? Analysing the technology,security and compliance” Journal Paper

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The aerOS journal paper entitled “How many FIDO protocols are needed? Analysing the technology,security and compliance” is  now available. The paper was submitted by InQBit team.
To overcome the security vulnerabilities caused by weak passwords, thus bridge the gap between user friendly interfaces and advanced security features, the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) alliance defined a number of authentication protocols. The existing literature leverages all versions of the FIDO protocols, without indicating the reasons behind the choice of each individual FIDO protocol (i.e., U2F, UAF, FIDO2). Inevitably, the question ”which protocol is more suitable per case” becomes significant. To provide an answer to the previous question, this paper performs a thorough comparative analysis on the different protocol specifications and their technological and market support, to identify whether any protocol has become obsolete. To reach to a conclusion, the proposed approach i) explores the existing literature, ii) analyses the specifications released by the FIDO Alliance, elaborating on the security characteristics, iii) inspects the technical adoption by the industry and iv) investigates the compliance of the FIDO with standards, regulations and other identity verification protocols. Our results indicate that FIDO2 is the most widely adopted solution; however, U2F remains supported by numerous web services as a two-factor authentication (2FA) choice, while UAF continues to be utilized in mobile clients seeking to offer the Transaction Confirmation feature.

Find out more about the paper here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654661

“A novel approach to self-capabilities in IoT industrial automation computing continuum” paper presentation

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aerOS paper entitled “A novel approach to self-capabilities in IoT industrial automation computing continuum” was presented during WF-IoT 2023! The 2023 IEEE 9th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT 2023) brings the latest from the research and academic community. It included a broad program of papers and presentations on the latest technology developments and innovations in the many fields and disciplines that drive the utility and vitality of IoT solutions and applications. After extensive peer review, the best of the proposals were selected for the conference program, which included technical papers, tutorials workshops and industry sessions designed specifically to advance technologies, end to end solutions, systems and infrastructure, processes, and operating methods, that are contributing to how IoT can reshape the world and overcome the challenges we face, so that all individuals can participate in and enjoy life to the fullest.

“Emerging IoT Applications and Architectures for Smart Maritime Container Terminals” paper presentation

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Michalis Michaelides (CUT) presented our paper “Emerging IoT Applications and Architectures for Smart Maritime Container Terminals” at the WFIoT2023 conference in the Special Session: Future Platforms for Cloud-Edge Continuum – Theoretical Foundations and Practical Considerations.

“A Survey on In-Network Computing: Programmable Data Plane and Technology Specific Applications” Paper

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The aerOS journal paper entitled “A Survey on In-Network Computing: Programmable Data Plane and Technology Specific Applications” is now available!
In comparison with cloud computing, edge computing offers processing at locations closer to end devices and reduces the user experienced latency. The new recent paradigm of in-network computing employs programmable network elements to compute on the path and prior to traffic reaching the edge or cloud servers. It advances common edge/cloud server based computing through proposing line rate processing capabilities at closer locations to the end devices. This paper discusses use cases, enabler technologies and protocols for in-network computing. According to our study, considering programmable data plane as an enabler technology, potential in-network computing applications are in-network analytics, in-network caching, in-network security, and in-network coordination. There are also technology specific applications of in-network computing in the scopes of cloud computing, edge computing, 5G/6G, and NFV. In this survey, the state of the art, in the framework of the proposed categorization, is reviewed. Furthermore, comparisons are provided in terms of a set of proposed criteria which assess the methods from the aspects of methodology, main results, as well as application-specific criteria. Finally, we discuss lessons learned and highlight some potential research directions.
Find more information about the paper here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9919270

A Novel Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit Game to Identify Online the Changing top-K Flows in Software-Defined Networks – Paper

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Identifying the top-K flows that require much more bandwidth resources in a large-scale Software-Defined Network (SDN) is essential for many network management tasks, such as load balancing, anomaly detection, and traffic engineering. However, identifying such top-K flows is not trivial, not only because of the fluctuations in flow bandwidth requirements but also because of the combinatorial explosion of problem instance sizes. In this paper, we weaken the tradeoff between exploration and exploitation and innovatively define the online top-K flows identification problem as identifying the top-K arms in a Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit (CMAB) model. Then, we propose a general greedy selection mechanism with some identification strategies that focus on temporal variations in the rewards. Extensive simulation experiments based on real traffic data are conducted to evaluate the performance of different strategies. In addition, the results of numerical simulations demonstrate that our proposed greedy selection mechanism significantly outperforms existing counterparts on top-K arms identification.

Find the paper online here: http://mosaic-lab.org/uploads/papers/6fa449ad-7848-4db5-889f-f81f790b516d.pdf

IEEE WFIoT 2023 Special Session – Call for papers

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31 May 2023
aerOS and ASSIST-IoT EU research projects co-organise the special session “Future Platforms for Cloud-Edge Continuum – Theoretical Foundations and Practical Considerations” (Track ID: Spes-01) at IEEE 9th World Forum on Internet of Things (IEEE WFIoT 2023), 12–27 October 2023, Aveiro, Portugal.

Description

Internet of Things (IoT) brings fundamental changes to all sectors of society and economy. However, realization of the IoT vision requires data processing (stream, static, or both) in an “optimal location” within the cloud-edge continuum. Within such continuum, data can be produced, stored, and processed “anywhere”. For instance, (1) far/nano-edge devices produce data act upon it locally, (2) fog nodes process data stream locally, while (3) cloud/HPC facilities deliver “unlimited” processing capabilities, need, for instance, to train (large) AI models. Taking into account the, systematically increasing, scale of IoT deployments the question arises: what capabilities must be facilitated by future IoT platforms, which will have to manage processes in multi-stakeholder, multi-cloud, federated, large-scale IoT ecosystems.

Here, key challenges are related to the fact that such platforms (encompassing operating systems, up to applications), will have to jointly leverage continuous progress of multiple enabling technologies, e.g.: 5G/6G networking, privacy and security, distributed computing, artificial intelligence, trust management, autonomous computing, distributed/smart applications, data management, etc. Moreover, they must facilitate intelligent (autonomous) orchestration of physical/virtual resources and tasks, by realizing them at the “optimal location” within the ecosystem (e.g., closer to where data is produced). To achieve this, resource-aware frugal AI is needed, to facilitate self-awareness and decision support, across heterogeneous ecosystem. Finally, it is also absolutely necessary that resource management will consider the CO2 footprint of the ecosystem and efficiently deploy data and tasks and also use multi-owner, heterogeneous sources of renewable energy.

In this context, contributions addressing theoretical and practical aspects of the following topics are invited (this list is, obviously, not exhaustive):

  • IoT architectures for domain agnostic user-aware, self-aware, (semi-)autonomous edge-cloud continuum platforms, including proposals for novel decentralized topologies, ad-hoc resource federation, time-triggered behaviors
  • Foundations for next generation of higher-level (meta) operating systems facilitating efficient use of computing capacity across edge-cloud continuum
  • Resource aware AI, including frugal AI, bringing intelligence to the edge-cloud continuum platforms (and ecosystems)
  • Cognitive frameworks leveraging AI-techniques to improve optimization of infrastructure usage and services and resources orchestration
  • Efficient streaming Big Data processing within large-scale IoT ecosystems
  • Interoperability solutions for multi-user edge-cloud continuum platforms, capable of coping with systematically increasing complexity of connecting vast numbers of heterogeneous devices
  • Federated data spaces approach for improved data governance, sovereignty and sharing
  • Privacy, security, trust and data governance in competitive scenarios
  • CO2 footprint reduction and efficient use of green energy in edge-cloud continuum ecosystems
  • Practical aspects of resource orchestration within highly heterogeneous, large-scale edge-cloud continuum ecosystems
  • Intent-based networking and its application to IoT
  • Swarm intelligence for IoT-edge-cloud continuum

Important Dates:

Deadline for Paper Submissions: July 9th, 2023
Acceptance Notification: July 31st, 2023
Deadline for Camera-Ready Paper Submissions: August 20th, 2023
Deadline for Presentation Submissions: September 25th, 2023
Paper should be six (6) pages in length and follow the instruction provided for the main Conference. The conference allows up to two additional pages for a maximum length of eight (8) pages with payment of extra page charges once the paper has been accepted.

Please submit your paper for this Special Session using the link to eWorks: https://www.scomminc.com/pcm/wfiot/wfiot.cfm

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Marcin Paprzycki: marcin.paprzycki@ibspan.waw.pl

More information also available at https://wfiot2023.iot.ieee.org/program/special-sessions

Organizers:

  • Rajkumar Buyya, The University of Melbourne, and Manjrasoft Pvt Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
  • Maria Ganzha, Warsaw University of technology and Systems Research Institute
  • Levent Gürgen, Kentyou, Grenoble, France
  • Carlos Palau, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia
  • Marcin Paprzycki, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Tarik Taleb,The University of Oulu and MOSAIC Lab, Oulu, Finland