Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

• Type: FP7

• Defi: Future internet experimental facility and experimentally-driven research

• Instrument: Integrated Project

• Objectif: ICT-2011.1.6 Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) with a specific focus on b) FIRE Federation

• Duration: October 2012 - September 2016

• Coordinator:Interdisciplinary institute for broadband technology (iMinds, Belgium)

• Partners: Interdisciplinary institute for broadband technology (iMinds, Belgium), University of Southampton (It Innovation, United Kingdom) Universite Pierre et Marie Curie - paris 6 (UPMC, France) Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung e.v (Fraunhofer, Germany) Technische Universitat Berlin (TUB, Germany) The University of Edinburgh (UEDIN, United Kingdom) National Ict Australia Limited (NICTA, Australia) Atos Spain SA (Atos, Spain) Panepistimio Thessalias (University of Thessaly) (UTH, Greece) National Technical University of Athens (NTUA, Greece) University of Bristol (UNIVBRIS, United Kingdom) Fundacio Privada i2cat, Internet I Innovacio Digital a Catalunya (i2cat, Spain) Eurescom-European Institute for Research and Strategic Studies in Telecommunications (EUR, Gmbh Germany) Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe limited (DANTE limited, United Kingdom) Universidad de Cantabria (UC, Spain) National Information Society agency (NIA, Korea (republic of))

• Inria contact: David Margery

• Abstract: In Fed4FIRE, we investigate the means by which our experimental platforms (BonFIRE, and in a secondary way Grid'5000) could be made interoperable with a wider eco-system of experimental platforms in Europe and beyond. The baseline architectural choice for this project is to use the key concepts of the Slice Federation Architecture (SFA) to provision resources on experimental platforms, a Control and Management Framework for Networking Testbeds named OMF for experiment control and OML, the OMF Measurement library for data collection. We investigate whether these can be used to run experiments on BonFIRE and how they need to be extended to support the operating model of BonFIRE or Grid'5000.

• Type: COOPERATION

• Defi: Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures

• Instrument: Small or medium-scale focused research project

• Objectif: ICT-2011.1.2 Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering

• Duration: October 2012 - September 2015

• Coordinator: Imperial College London (IMP, United Kingdom)

• Partner: Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland), Université de Rennes 1 (UR1, France), Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationtechniek Berlin (ZIB, Germany), Maxeler Technologies (MAX, United Kingdom), SAP AG (SAP, Germany)

• UR1 contact: Guillaume Pierre

• Abstract: The HARNESS FP7 project aims to incorporate innovative hardware and network technologies seamlessly into data centres that provide platform-as-a-service cloud infrastructures.

  The dominant approach in offering cloud services today is based on homogeneous commodity resources: large numbers of inexpensive machines, interconnected by off-the-shelf networking equipment, supported by stock disk drives. However, cloud service providers are unable to use this platform to satisfy the requirements of many important and high-value classes of applications.

  Today’s cloud platforms are missing out on the revolution in new hardware and network technologies for realising vastly richer computational, communication, and storage resources. Technologies such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), General-Purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU), programmable network routers, and solid-state disks promise increased performance, reduced energy consumption, and lower cost profiles. However, their heterogeneity and complexity makes integrating them into the standard Platform as a Service (PaaS) framework a fundamental challenge.

  The HARNESS project brings innovative and heterogeneous resources into cloud platforms through a rich programme of research, validated by commercial and open source case studies.

• Type: COOPERATION

• Objectif: ICT-2011.1.2 Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering

• Instrument: Collaborative Project

• Duration: October 2012 - September 2016

• Coordinator: GEIE ERCIM (France)

• Partner: SINTEF (Norway), Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK), University of Stuttgart (Germany), Inria (France), Centre d'Excellence en Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication (Belgium), Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (Greece), BE.Wan SPRL (Belgium), EVRY AS (Norway), SysFera SAS (France), Flexiant Limited (UK), Lufthansa Systems AG (Germany), Gesellschaft fur Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung MBH Gottingen (Germany), Automotive Simulation Center Stuttgart (Germany), University of Ulm (Germany), Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza im. Stanislawa Staszica (Poland), University of Cyprus (Cyprus), IBSAC-Intelligent Business Solutions ltd (Cyprus), University of Oslo (Norway)

• Inria contact: Nikolaos Parlavantzas

• See also: http://www.paasage.eu/

• Currently there exist several open source and commercial services at the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) level. Software developers targeting the cloud would ideally want to develop their software once and be able to deploy it on any of the available services, reaping the benefits of a cloud market without losing on performance, availability, or any other service properties. The impediment to this objective is that IaaS platforms are heterogeneous, and the services and APIs that they provide are not standardized. Porting an existing application to one of these platforms or switching between platforms is thus a challenging task and involves a high risk that the results do not meet the expected requirements.

  PaaSage delivers a development and deployment platform, with an accompanying methodology, with which developers of enterprise systems can access services of cloud platforms in a technology neutral approach while guiding developers to configure their applications for best performance. The consortium brings together ERCIM for management and STFC as scientific coordinator together with experts in different aspects of clouds ranging from software and services (SINTEF), High Performance Computing (HLRS) and systems development environments (Inria) to a group of SMEs working on cloud systems and end-user organisations with requirements in the cloud domain.

• Program: ICT COST

• Project acronym: NESUS

• Project title: Network for Sustainable Ultrascale Computing (ICT COST Action IC1305)

• Duration: 2014 - 2018

• Coordinator: Professor Jesus Carretero, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, http://www.nesus.eu

• Other partners: 33 COST countries and 11 non-COST countries

• Abstract: Ultrascale systems are envisioned as large-scale complex systems joining parallel and distributed computing systems that will be two to three orders of magnitude larger that today's systems. The EU is already funding large scale computing systems research, but it is not coordinated across researchers, leading to duplications and inefficiencies. The goal of the NESUS Action is to establish an open European research network targeting sustainable solutions for ultrascale computing aiming at cross fertilization among HPC, large scale distributed systems, and big data management. The network will contribute to gluing disparate researchers working across different areas and provide a meeting ground for researchers in these separate areas to exchange ideas, to identify synergies, and to pursue common activities in research topics such as sustainable software solutions (applications and system software stack), data management, energy efficiency, and resilience. Some of the most active research groups of the world in this area are members of this proposal. This Action will increase the value of these groups at the European-level by reducing duplication of efforts and providing a more holistic view to all researchers, it will promote the leadership of Europe, and it will increase their impact on science, economy, and society. Anne-Cécile Orgerie is co-responsible of the focus group on metrics, monitoring, instrumentation and profiling in the Working Group 5 on Energy Efficiency.

• Program: EIT Digital

• Project acronym: MC-DATA

• Project title: Multi-cloud data management

• Duration: Jan-Dec 2015

• Coordinator: Dr. Peter Pietzuch, Imperial College London

• Other partners: SICS, U-Hopper, VTT, Proxible.

• Abstract: The goal of this activity is to increase developer uptake and commercial exploitation of the previously-developed MC-ConPaaS mobile edge cloud platform through new products in the area of location-based advertising services. The activity will (a) integrate MC-ConPaaS with the Android mobile platform to encourage mobile developer adoption; (b) pilot a location-based interactive advertising service with augmented reality and 3D tracking; (c) commercialise the pilot, demonstrating the business value of a mobile edge cloud model; and (d) model and shape the ecosystem of mobile edge cloud services, enabling new revenue streams for mobile operators.