Showing papers by "Rich Wolski published in 2021"

Edge‐adaptable serverless acceleration for machine learning Internet of Things applications

Abstract: Serverless computing is an emerging event‐driven programming model that accelerates the development and deployment of scalable web services on cloud computing systems. Though widely integrated with the public cloud, serverless computing use is nascent for edge‐based, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. In this work, we present STOIC (serverless teleoperable hybrid cloud), an IoT application deployment and offloading system that extends the serverless model in three ways. First, STOIC adopts a dynamic feedback control mechanism to precisely predict latency and dispatch workloads uniformly across edge and cloud systems using a distributed serverless framework. Second, STOIC leverages hardware acceleration (e.g., GPU resources) for serverless function execution when available from the underlying cloud system. Third, STOIC can be configured in multiple ways to overcome deployment variability associated with public cloud use. We overview the design and implementation of STOIC and empirically evaluate it using real‐world machine learning applications and multitier IoT deployments (edge and cloud). Specifically, we show that STOIC can be used for training image processing workloads (for object recognition)—once thought too resource‐intensive for edge deployments. We find that STOIC reduces overall execution time (response latency) and achieves placement accuracy that ranges from 92% to 97%.

On the Future of Cloud Engineering

Abstract: Ever since the commercial offerings of the Cloud started appearing in 2006, the landscape of cloud computing has been undergoing remarkable changes with the emergence of many different types of service offerings, developer productivity enhancement tools, and new application classes as well as the manifestation of cloud functionality closer to the user at the edge. The notion of utility computing, however, has remained constant throughout its evolution, which means that cloud users always seek to save costs of leasing cloud resources while maximizing their use. On the other hand, cloud providers try to maximize their profits while assuring service-level objectives of the cloud-hosted applications and keeping operational costs low. All these outcomes require systematic and sound cloud engineering principles. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of cloud engineering, survey the landscape of best practices in cloud engineering and its evolution, discuss many of the existing cloud engineering advances, and identify both the inherent technical challenges and research opportunities for the future of cloud computing in general and cloud engineering in particular.

A Resource-Efficient Smart Contract for Privacy Preserving Smart Home Systems

Abstract: Due to the proliferation of IoT and the popularity of smart contracts mediated by blockchain, smart home systems have become capable of providing privacy and security to their occupants. In blockchain-based home automation systems, business logic is handled by smart contracts securely. However, a blockchain-based solution is inherently resource-intensive, making it unsuitable for resource-constrained IoT devices. Moreover, time-sensitive actions are complex to perform in a blockchainbased solution due to the time required to mine a block. In this work, we propose a blockchain-independent smart contract infrastructure suitable for resource-constrained IoT devices. Our proposed method is also capable of executing time-sensitive business logic. As an example of an end-to-end application, we describe a smart camera system using our proposed method, compare this system with an existing blockchain-based solution, and present an empirical evaluation of their performance.

On the Future of Cloud Engineering

Abstract: Ever since the commercial offerings of the Cloud started appearing in 2006, the landscape of cloud computing has been undergoing remarkable changes with the emergence of many different types of service offerings, developer productivity enhancement tools, and new application classes as well as the manifestation of cloud functionality closer to the user at the edge. The notion of utility computing, however, has remained constant throughout its evolution, which means that cloud users always seek to save costs of leasing cloud resources while maximizing their use. On the other hand, cloud providers try to maximize their profits while assuring service-level objectives of the cloud-hosted applications and keeping operational costs low. All these outcomes require systematic and sound cloud engineering principles. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of cloud engineering, survey the landscape of best practices in cloud engineering and its evolution, discuss many of the existing cloud engineering advances, and identify both the inherent technical challenges and research opportunities for the future of cloud computing in general and cloud engineering in particular.

Aristotle Cloud Federation: Container Runtimes Technical Report.

Abstract: A National Science Foundation-sponsored container runtimes investigation was conducted by the Aristotle Cloud Federation to better understand the challenges of selecting and using Docker, Singularity, and X-Containers. The main goal of this investigation was to identify the "pain points" experienced by users when selecting and using containers for scientific research and to share lessons learned. Application performance characteristics are included in this report as well as user experiences with Kubernetes and container orchestration on cloud and HPC platforms. Scientists, research computing practitioners, and educators may find value in this report when considering the use and/or deployment of containers or when preparing students to meet the unique challenges of using containers in scientific research.