Computing Services Research Articles

3GPP Edge–Fog federation: Transparent 3rd-party authentication and application mobility

3GPP edge and fog computing paradigms provide computational services to users at low latency. These paradigms alone are not enough to fulfill the users’ requirements completely. Therefore, a federation among these computing paradigms is necessary. To realize such federation, there is a need of an authentication mechanism where subscribers of a fog, can access 3GPP edge’s services, or vice versa, without buying new subscription, and an application mobility mechanism for continuous service during handover from 3GPP edge to fog, or vice versa, without re-authentication. In this work,33This work is an extension of [1] with inclusion of two new scenarios, extended testbed, and more results. we propose: (1) a proxy-based state transfer and third-party authentication (PS3A), that uses a transparent proxy to transfer the authentication and application state information between 3GPP edge and fog, and (2) a token-based state transfer and proxy-based third-party authentication (TSP3A), that uses the proxy to transfer the authentication information and tokens to transfer application state information between 3GPP edge and fog. The proxy plays different roles, via virtual counterparts of entities involved in these protocols, to provide transparency. When the 3GPP edge, using EPS-AKA, receives an authentication request, the proxy relays and behaves as a virtual Home Subscriber Server (vHSS) for the 3GPP edge, and behaves as a virtual user for the fog, which is using OIDC. We applied PS3A and TSP3A to three federation scenarios among 3GPP edge and fog. Experimental results show that PS3A and TSP3A provide authentication within 0.345–2.858 s for a 0–100 Mbps proxy load. The results further show that TSP3A provides application mobility, while taking 40%–52% less time than PS3A, using state tokens. TSP3A and PS3A also reduce the service interruption latency by 82.4% and 84.6%, compared to the cloud-based service, via tokens and prefetching.

Service-Oriented Computing: A Trajectory for Research to 2030

Service-Oriented Computing: A Trajectory for Research to 2030

Development of a Secure Web-Based Medical Imaging Analysis Platform: The AWESOMME Project.

Precision medicine research benefits from machine learning in the creation of robust models adapted to the processing of patient data. This applies both to pathology identification in images, i.e., annotation or segmentation, and to computer-aided diagnostic for classification or prediction. It comes with the strong need to exploit and visualize large volumes of images and associated medical data. The work carried out in this paper follows on from a main case study piloted in a cancer center. It proposes an analysis pipeline for patients with osteosarcoma through segmentation, feature extraction and application of a deep learning model to predict response to treatment. The main aim of the AWESOMME project is to leverage this work and implement the pipeline on an easy-to-access, secure web platform. The proposed WEB application is based on a three-component architecture: a data server, a heavy computation and authentication server and a medical imaging web-framework with a user interface. These existing components have been enhanced to meet the needs of security and traceability for the continuous production of expert data. It innovates by covering all steps of medical imaging processing (visualization and segmentation, feature extraction and aided diagnostic) and enables the test and use of machine learning models. The infrastructure is operational, deployed in internal production and is currently being installed in the hospital environment. The extension of the case study and user feedback enabled us to fine-tune functionalities and proved that AWESOMME is a modular solution capable to analyze medical data and share research algorithms with in-house clinicians.

Scalable Cloud Architectures for Deploying AI Applications

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into cloud computing represents a pivotal shift in the technological landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation across industries. Deploying AI applications at scale on the cloud poses unique challenges, necessitating the development of scalable cloud architectures tailored to meet the computational demands and data processing needs inherent to AI. This article explores the foundational aspects of cloud computing architectures, emphasizing the principles of scalability essential for AI applications. It delves into the core challenges faced when deploying AI on the cloud, such as computational requirements, data management, network constraints, and security concerns. Further, it presents various architectural models that facilitate scalability, including containerization, serverless computing, and cloud-native AI services, drawing from realworld case studies to illustrate effective strategies and best practices. Additionally, the article examines performance optimization techniques, security considerations, and the future directions of cloud-based AI deployments, highlighting the role of emerging technologies such as quantum computing and edge AI. By providing a comprehensive overview of scalable cloud architectures for AI applications, this article aims to guide researchers, practitioners, and organizations in leveraging cloud computing to its full potential, thereby enabling more efficient, secure, and scalable AI solutions.

Simulation Analysis and Comparative Study of MOSGT with Other Techniques

This paper presents a comparative study of the Multi-Objective Symmetric Game Theory (MOSGT) for task offloading in cloud robots with existing techniques such as Genetic Algorithm 4 Collaborative Computation Offloading (GA4CCO) and Approximation Collaborative Computation Offloading (ACCO). The study employs a simulation analysis to evaluate the performance of the proposed MOSGT model in a cloud robotics context. The results of the simulation study reveal that the MOSGT model reduces system cost by approximately 35% compared to GA4CCO and by 20% compared to ACCO. Furthermore, the MOSGT model exhibits a reduced rate of 30% less than GA4CCO and 25% minimal than ACCO in terms of iteration. These findings underscore the potential of MOSGT as a promising solution for efficient task offloading in cloud robots, offering significant improvements in computational complexity and service quality in edge computing.

Electric Vehicle Battery Disassembly Using Interfacing Toolbox for Robotic Arms

This paper showcases the integration of the Interfacing Toolbox for Robotic Arms (ITRA) with our newly developed hybrid Visual Servoing (VS) methods to automate the disassembly of electric vehicle batteries, thereby advancing sustainability and fostering a circular economy. ITRA enhances collaboration between industrial robotic arms, server computers, sensors, and actuators, meeting the intricate demands of robotic disassembly, including the essential real-time tracking of components and robotic arms. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our hybrid VS approach, combined with ITRA, in the context of Electric Vehicle (EV) battery disassembly across two robotic testbeds. The first employs a KUKA KR10 robot for precision tasks, while the second utilizes a KUKA KR500 for operations needing higher payload capacity. Conducted in T1 (Manual Reduced Velocity) mode, our experiments underscore a swift communication protocol that links low-level and high-level control systems, thus enabling rapid object detection and tracking. This allows for the efficient completion of disassembly tasks, such as removing the EV battery’s top case in 27 s and disassembling a stack of modules in 32 s. The demonstrated success of our framework highlights its extensive applicability in robotic manufacturing sectors that demand precision and adaptability, including medical robotics, extreme environments, aerospace, and construction.

Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Cloud Computing Service Models on the Employment Structure of College Graduates

Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Cloud Computing Service Models on the Employment Structure of College Graduates

Enhanced whale optimization algorithm for dependent tasks offloading problem in multi-edge cloud computing

In this paper, we introduce the Enhanced Whale Optimization Algorithm (EWA) to optimize dependent task offloading in a multi-edge cloud computing environment. Our proposed algorithm aims to identify the most suitable offloading scenario for dependent tasks, focusing on minimizing total processing latency, energy consumption, and associated costs. We operate within a system comprising many decentralized Mobile Edge Computing servers (MECs) and a centralized cloud server. Two novel improvement operations, namely Frame Shifting (FS) and Load Redistribution Strategy (LRS), are introduced to enhance the performance of the whale algorithm. Through simulation, our results demonstrate the superior performance of EWA. Specifically, compared to the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), EWA achieves a remarkable reduction in latency by 22.84%, a substantial decrease in energy consumption by 78.28%, and a notable reduction in cost usage by 61.47%. These outcomes underscore the efficacy and practical significance of the proposed EWA in addressing the challenges posed by dependent task offloading in the multi-edge cloud computing landscape.

Statistical pathways to low-carbon cities: Analyzing renewable integration, energy-efficient design, and job creation

To address the existing gap in understanding the intricate dynamics of resource management in Cloud Fog Computing (CFC)-driven Smart Grids (SG), this study introduces an innovative adaptive framework integrating Genetic Optimization Algorithm (GOA) and Cuckoo Search Optimization Algorithm (CSOA), aiming to optimize response times and enhance overall efficiency. In the domain of contemporary energy grids, the implementation of intelligent grids (IG) has ushered in a new era of dependable, streamlined, eco-friendly, and economically viable electric services. These grids constitute a fundamental facet of present-day energy resources. Moreover, the advent of cloud and mist computing (CMC) provides on-demand access to computational resources. Overcoming associated challenges, CMC not only delivers advantages like cost-effectiveness, energy conservation, scalability, flexibility, and adaptability but also presents an innovative model for resource management in IG. This study introduces a CMC-driven strategy for managing resources in IG by digitally replicating key grid components. The proposed framework aims to furnish diverse computational services for resource management within IG through a hierarchical arrangement of CMCs. Additionally, this investigation scrutinizes and simulates two optimization approaches: the cuckoo search and grasshopper optimization algorithms. These algorithms operate on an adaptive machine learning mechanism designed to balance the load, and the study meticulously compares their efficacy. These algorithms operate on an adaptive machine learning mechanism designed to balance the load, and the study meticulously compares their efficacy in the context of Renewable Integration, Energy-Efficient Design, and Job Creation.

Modeling The Prediction of Hard Drive Capacity Usage on Server Computers Based on Linear Regression

Bank of XYZ has a server computer that is used to run several information technology application services such as ATMs and others. Because the server computer uses a hard drive, the full hard drive can cause problems with the service not operating properly. Full hard drives occur without being noticed. So that this makes the computer server problematic, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and decreased customer loyalty to Bank XYZ. To solve the problem at XYZ Bank, one of the machine learning algorithms can be used to predict hard drive capacity. The method used to predict hard drive storage or usage. The machine learning algorithm used is Multiple Linear Regression. The results of this study show that the linear regression model successfully predicts the use of hard drive capacity on server computers with a sufficient level of accuracy.But it is still not optimal because only a few servers can be predicted. For further research, may consider using the LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) algorithm. LSTM is an algorithm that is well-suited for sequence prediction problems, including time series forecasting.

Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Task Offloading and Load Balancing for Vehicular Edge Computing

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) effectively reduces the computational burden on vehicles by offloading tasks from resource-constrained vehicles to edge nodes. However, non-uniformly distributed vehicles offloading a large number of tasks cause load imbalance problems among edge nodes, resulting in performance degradation. In this paper, we propose a deep reinforcement learning-based decision scheme for task offloading and load balancing with the optimization objective of minimizing the system cost considering the split offloading of tasks and the load dynamics of edge nodes. First, we model the mutual interaction between mobile vehicles and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) servers using a Markov decision process. Second, the optimal task-offloading and resource allocation decision is obtained by utilizing the twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (TD3), and server load balancing is achieved through edge collaboration using a server selection algorithm based on the technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS). Finally, we have conducted extensive simulation experiments and compared the results with several other baseline schemes. The proposed scheme can more effectively reduce the system cost and increase the system resource utilization.

Statistical Study of the Impact of Digitalization of Organizations on Lending Activity: Regional Level

The purpose of research. The increasing rate of Russian economy digitalization has ambiguous proportions by industries and regions. Russian regions are characterized by uneven levels of Internet adoption, as well as organizations applying computer networks, servers and electronic documentation systems. This creates territorial differentiation of opportunities for organizations to use digital services and online platforms created by commercial banks to attract and service loans.Overview and analysis of literary sources have led to the conclusion that quantitative assessment of interplay between digitalization of organizations and their credit activity has not been sufficiently developed at the regional level. The purpose of this study is to develop statistical indexes to assess the impact of digitalization of organizations on their credit activity by Russian regions, and to analyze interdependence of suggested indexes to find out the patterns of such an impact.Methods. The source data array is a set of values of statistical indexes, proposed for the purposes of the study, published by Rosstat. This array is processed by imputation of missing values knn – k nearest neighbors to eliminate missing part of the original data. The tightness of statistical relationship between the analyzed variables was assessed by calculating the paired correlation coefficients. The average and median values of the analyzed effective variables were calculated across several years. The regional distribution by clusters per effective variable values was made using the hierarchical cluster analysis. The impact of factor variables on the effective variables was assessed using the panel regression modelling.Results. Based on the system of regional statistics indexes formed by the author, the territorial peculiarities of the dependence of credit capacity on the factors of digitalization of organizations in groups of Russian regions were analyzed, and the parameters of the “response” of credit capacity indexes to changes in individual technological components of digitalization of organizations in regional clusters were obtained.Conclusion. It was concluded that the results of the study could be used to develop business lending programs for commercial banks and determine the priorities of regional digital development programs by government bodies.

The Comparison of Experiments in Embedded System Course

The embedded system is designed to perform specific computation tasks and usually embedded in other devices. Unlike normal personal computer and cloud server, it is not for daily use but production environment with higher stability and reliability demands in various fields with fixed functionalities, smaller size and lower power consumption for the use of portable and power limit situations. The course of embedded system generally contains fundamental concepts, hardware architecture, software development, bootloader and kernel development, etc. It is a course closely integrating theory and experiments, with the purpose of making resource optimization and management, power efficiency, security and integrity. As a course in university, there are many factors that teacher needs to take into consideration before conducting the experiments in embedded system. In this paper, various factors relevant to the experiments, such as the system architecture, platform, and principles, are discussed in details for the comparison of embedded system experiments.

Collaborative Misbehaviour Response System for Improving Road Safety

This paper advocates for a proactive approach to traffic safety by introducing a collaborative Misbehaviour Response System (MBR) designed to preemptively address hazardous driving behaviours such as wrong-way driving and distracted driving. The system integrates with electric vehicles (EVs), leveraging advanced technologies like ADAS, edge computing, and cloud services to enhance road safety. Upon detection of misbehaviour, the MBR system utilizes data from interconnected parking facilities to identify the nearest safe location and provides navigation guidance to authorities and nearby vehicles. The paper presents a prototype of the MBR system, demonstrating its efficiency in detecting misbehaviours and coordinating swift responses. It also discusses the system’s limitations and societal implications, outlining future research directions, including integration with autonomous vehicle systems and variable speed limit technologies, to further improve road safety through proactive and context-aware response mechanisms.

Energy-Efficient Framework for Green Cloud Computing in Dynamic Resource Allocation

Cloud Computing has been a trending technology for a few years supporting computational services over internet. But ever since its adoption, cloud’s consistent challenge is in its dynamic resource allocation. The existing cloud model details the online and offline algorithms used to decide the dynamic resource allocation. The goal is to have a dynamic resource allocation framework that aligns to cloud data management’s objective of maximizing revenue with minimum cost. This encourages both consumers and cloud providers not only with energy-efficient power usage but also high CPU utilization. This article discusses the impediments of migrating to Public Cloud, what is dynamic resource allocation, HPC workloads with complex communication path on cloud platform, and the benefits of bare metal platform for latency-sensitive applications. We shed light on trade- offs (compute balance) between Private and Public Cloud, how existing resources can be leveraged, Random forest (RF) solutions including a study on hybrid cloud computing capacity optimization framework. Understanding RL architecture, problem solving approach, learning structure and Hybrid Cloud Management Architecture framework are also explored. Also given are a few RL implemented gaming examples on how it makes an impact. Lastly, we shall do the comparisons of RL with other Machine Learning (ML) approaches.

A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed for cyber-physical energy systems in smart commercial buildings

In recent years, there has been a growing trend toward the development of smart buildings that rely on cyber-physical systems (CPS) to optimize occupant comfort, safety, and energy efficiency. To ensure the reliable and efficient operation of CPS with designed control strategies, it is important to evaluate their performance under various scenarios before deploying them in the real world. This is where a Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed designed for studying sensor and control-related studies in smart buildings can be highly valuable. With the growing threat of cyber-attacks and physical faults targeting smart buildings, it is essential to ensure the security of building operations. A HIL testbed can emulate cyber-attack and physical fault scenarios, allowing researchers to develop and test threat detection and mitigation algorithms. This enables researchers to identify potential issues and optimize the algorithms in a safe and controlled environment before they are deployed in real-world settings, reducing the risk of failures that can negatively impact occupant comfort, safety, and energy efficiency. Therefore, this paper developed a HIL testbed designed for cyber-physical energy systems (e.g. buildings automation system (BAS)) in smart commercial buildings. The HIL testbed is comprised of a real-time building and Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) emulator using Modelica-based dynamic models, a set of BAS controllers, and a BAS computer server. The data generation capability of the HIL testbed is demonstrated by tracking normal and faulty operating data in the BAS, as well as monitoring detailed network traffic in the local BAS network. This study further demonstrates the HIL testbed’s capability by conducting case studies on real-time physical fault and cyber-attack experiments using a Department of Energy (DOE) prototype commercial building. It is anticipated that the fully functional HIL testbed will be utilized for a variety of sensor and control-related studies, including but not limited to testing, developing, validating of different HVAC control strategies, fault detection & diagnosis, energy monitoring and analysis, cyber security study, etc.

Data Leakage, Security, Privacy Issues and Challenges in Cloud Computing Services: A Systematic Survey

Cloud Computing services are widely expanded all over the world because of it comfort and reliable services offered to the user on demand. The majority of the users who are using different pervasive devices are directly or indirectly dependent on the cloud services. The consumer data stored at vendor end has lot of security concerns. Though many cloud computing mechanisms are offered by cloud vendors still the data leakages are challenging issues to be addressed in various levels. This paper presents the systematic investigation of data leakages which occur in cloud services. In our study we present systematic analysis of (i) data leakages in cloud environment, (ii) security issues related to cloud environment, (iii) cloud security mechanisms and finally we present the challenges in cloud security that need proper solutions.

Modular neural network for Edge-based Detection of early-stage IoT Botnet

The Internet of Things (IoT) has led to rapid growth in smart cities. However, IoT botnet-based attacks against smart city systems are becoming more prevalent. Detection methods for IoT botnet-based attacks have been the subject of extensive research, but the identification of early-stage behaviour of the IoT botnet prior to any attack remains a largely unexplored area that could prevent any attack before it is launched. Few studies have addressed the early stages of IoT botnet detection using monolithic deep learning algorithms that could require more time for training and detection. We, however, propose an edge-based deep learning system for the detection of the early stages of IoT botnets in smart cities. The proposed system, which we call EDIT (Edge-based Detection of early-stage IoT Botnet), aims to detect abnormalities in network communication traffic caused by early-stage IoT botnets based on the modular neural network (MNN) method at multi-access edge computing (MEC) servers. MNN can improve detection accuracy and efficiency by leveraging parallel computing on MEC. According to the findings, EDIT has a lower false-negative rate compared to a monolithic approach and other studies. At the MEC server, EDIT takes as little as 16 ms for the detection of an IoT botnet.

L-NORM: Learning and Network Orchestration at the Edge for Robot Connectivity and Mobility in Factory Floor Environments

Robotic factory floors will revolutionize the future of manufacturing and the service industry by automating tasks. However, to fully supplement human effort, these robots will need low-latency, reliable connectivity throughout the work zone through links established by wireless access points (APs). This will allow the robot to assuredly respond to programming directives that rely on the real-time relaying of robot-generated sensor data to the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) server. In this paper, we propose L-NORM, a multi-AP and multi-robot coordination framework, as a multi-tiered solution for such autonomous edge networks. First, multi-robot motion planning through reinforcement learning occurs at the MEC, using as input multi-modal robot sensor data. Second, multi-AP resource orchestration is performed using another reinforcement learning-based method that maps a subset of available APs to each robot toward meeting their sensor data delivery requirements. Furthermore, we suggest diversity combination of uplink channels with the 802.11ax scheduled access mode that will (i) support high reliability of multi-robot uplink sensor packets and (ii) enable multi-AP coordination, for optimized resource utilization. Through extensive simulation studies, we show that the probability of robot deviation to remain within 0.5 m from its optimal path, is 19% more in L-NORM compared to classical 802.11ax based edge network solution, considering <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math></inline-formula> 1 MB of sensor data per robot.

A Novel Deep-Learning-Based QoS Prediction Model for Service Recommendation Utilizing Multi-Stage Multi-Scale Feature Fusion With Individual Evaluations

With the rapid development of service computing, the demand for service recommendation is increasing. Quality of Service (QoS) prediction has been one of the key challenges for service recommendation. Existing deep learning-based methods have been proposed for QoS prediction, but further improvement of their neural network structures is still needed to improve the prediction accuracy. This work introduces multi-stage multi-scale feature fusion with individual evaluations to a deep learning model for accurate QoS prediction. In our model, non-negative matrix factorization is used to extract three-scale (i.e., global, local, and individual) features; distance similarity is exploited to find similar users and services; a multi-stage deep neural network is designed to fuse multi-scale features, where individual evaluations are input to each stage to correct QoS features. Finally, our model is compared with often-cited prediction methods, and the experimental results show that it can more accurately predict QoS than its peers. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —Accurate QoS prediction is very helpful to recommend the most suitable services to users among many similar services. Affected by the sparsity of historical data, the accuracy of existing QoS prediction methods is often limited. The multi-scale features of users and services can be used to improve prediction accuracy. This work proposes a new QoS prediction method to do so. Specifically, it first extracts global and individual features through non-negative matrix factorization and uses distance similarity to obtain local features. Then, it proposes a new deep neural network that fuses the extracted multi-scale features in each learning stage, thereby improving QoS prediction for services recommendation.