Edge-centric Computing

Abstract

In many aspects of human activity, there has been a continuous struggle between the forces of centralization and decentralization. Computing exhibits the same phenomenon; we have gone from mainframes to PCs and local networks in the past, and over the last decade we have seen a centralization and consolidation of services and applications in data centers and clouds. We position that a new shift is necessary. Technological advances such as powerful dedicated connection boxes deployed in most homes, high capacity mobile end-user devices and powerful wireless networks, along with growing user concerns about trust, privacy, and autonomy requires taking the control of computing applications, data, and services away from some central nodes (the "core") to the other logical extreme (the "edge") of the Internet. We also position that this development can help blurring the boundary between man and machine, and embrace social computing in which humans are part of the computation and decision making loop, resulting in a human-centered system design. We refer to this vision of human-centered edge-device based computing as Edge-centric Computing. We elaborate in this position paper on this vision and present the research challenges associated with its implementation.

On edge microclouds to provide local container-based services

“…A generalization of P2P computing applications was suggested in [10]. In that work it was proposed within the context of edge computing that the users become part of edge cloud computing services and participate in the provided service.…”

“…Nowadays, there are around 30 devices connected to the community cloud 8 , and there are more than 50 users subscribed to the two mailing list, one for users 9 and the other for developers 10 .…”

User-Centered Attestation for Layered and Decentralised Systems

“…However, the cloud-centered paradigm faces a major shift: the success of the Internet-of-Things causes the generation of the majority of data at the outer edges of a network [10], [22], [23]. Edge computing refers to the set of technologies allowing computations to be performed along the edges of the network, on downstream data on behalf of cloud services and upstream data on behalf of IoT services [10], [22]. Fog computing is closely related to the general concept of edge computing [5], [7], [27] with a strong focus on performing task in nearby, decentralized systems.…”

Internet of Things with Lightweight Identities Implemented Using DNS DANE—Architecture Proposal

“…Thermostats and light bulbs, coffee makers, smart buttons, and even smart mains sockets—most of them require their avatar representation in the manufacturer’s cloud, or at least use a proprietary communication protocol. This effectively prevents direct machine-to-machine interaction, also referred to as edge or fog computing [1]. One of the reasons for such a situation is that those small, but intelligent devices are connected with the Internet using a multitude of protocols and communication paths, which are often subject to additional address translation.…”