Showing papers on "Reference architecture published in 2017"

On Multi-Access Edge Computing: A Survey of the Emerging 5G Network Edge Cloud Architecture and Orchestration

Abstract: Multi-access edge computing (MEC) is an emerging ecosystem, which aims at converging telecommunication and IT services, providing a cloud computing platform at the edge of the radio access network MEC offers storage and computational resources at the edge, reducing latency for mobile end users and utilizing more efficiently the mobile backhaul and core networks This paper introduces a survey on MEC and focuses on the fundamental key enabling technologies It elaborates MEC orchestration considering both individual services and a network of MEC platforms supporting mobility, bringing light into the different orchestration deployment options In addition, this paper analyzes the MEC reference architecture and main deployment scenarios, which offer multi-tenancy support for application developers, content providers, and third parties Finally, this paper overviews the current standardization activities and elaborates further on open research challenges

Industry 4.0 Concept: Background and Overview

Abstract: Industry 4.0 is a strategic initiative recently introduced by the German government. The goal of the initiative is transformation of industrial manufacturing through digitalization and exploitation of potentials of new technologies. An Industry 4.0 production system is thus flexible and enables individualized and customized products. The aim of this paper is to present and facilitate an understanding of Industry 4.0 concepts, its drivers, enablers, goals and limitations. Building blocks are described and smart factory concept is presented. A Reference Architecture Model RAMI4.0 and role of standardization in future implementation of Industry 4.0 concept are addressed. The current status of Industry 4.0 readiness of the German companies is presented and commented. Finally it is discussed if Industry 4.0 is really a disruptive concept or simply a natural incremental development of industrial production systems.

DistBlockNet: A Distributed Blockchains-Based Secure SDN Architecture for IoT Networks

Abstract: The rapid increase in the number and diversity of smart devices connected to the Internet has raised the issues of flexibility, efficiency, availability, security, and scalability within the current IoT network. These issues are caused by key mechanisms being distributed to the IoT network on a large scale, which is why a distributed secure SDN architecture for IoT using the blockchain technique (DistBlockNet) is proposed in this research. It follows the principles required for designing a secure, scalable, and efficient network architecture. The DistBlockNet model of IoT architecture combines the advantages of two emerging technologies: SDN and blockchains technology. In a verifiable manner, blockchains allow us to have a distributed peer-to-peer network where non-confident members can interact with each other without a trusted intermediary. A new scheme for updating a flow rule table using a blockchains technique is proposed to securely verify a version of the flow rule table, validate the flow rule table, and download the latest flow rules table for the IoT forwarding devices. In our proposed architecture, security must automatically adapt to the threat landscape, without administrator needs to review and apply thousands of recommendations and opinions manually. We have evaluated the performance of our proposed model architecture and compared it to the existing model with respect to various metrics. The results of our evaluation show that DistBlockNet is capable of detecting attacks in the IoT network in real time with low performance overheads and satisfying the design principles required for the future IoT network.

Software Platforms for Smart Cities: Concepts, Requirements, Challenges, and a Unified Reference Architecture

Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICT) can be instrumental in progressing towards smarter city environments, which improve city services, sustainability, and citizens’ quality of life. Smart City software platforms can support the development and integration of Smart City applications. However, the ICT community must overcome current technological and scientific challenges before these platforms can be widely adopted. This article surveys the state of the art in software platforms for Smart Cities. We analyzed 23 projects concerning the most used enabling technologies, as well as functional and non-functional requirements, classifying them into four categories: Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things, Big Data, and Cloud Computing. Based on these results, we derived a reference architecture to guide the development of next-generation software platforms for Smart Cities. Finally, we enumerated the most frequently cited open research challenges and discussed future opportunities. This survey provides important references to help application developers, city managers, system operators, end-users, and Smart City researchers make project, investment, and research decisions.

A Preliminary Review of Enterprise Serverless Cloud Computing (Function-as-a-Service) Platforms

Abstract: In line with cloud computing emergence as the dominant enterprise computing paradigm, our conceptualization of the cloud computing reference architecture and service construction has also evolved. For example, to address the need for cost reduction and rapid provisioning, virtualization has moved beyond hardware to containers. More recently, serverless computing or Function-as-a-Service has been presented as a means to introduce further cost-efficiencies, reduce configuration and management overheads, and rapidly increase an application's ability to speed up, scale up and scale down in the cloud. The potential of this new computation model is reflected in the introduction of serverless computing platforms by the main hyperscale cloud service providers. This paper provides an overview and multi-level feature analysis of seven enterprise serverless computing platforms. It reviews extant research on these platforms and identifies the emergence of AWS Lambda as a de facto base platform for research on enterprise serverless cloud computing. The paper concludes with a summary of avenues for further research.

Challenges and Requirements for the Application of Industry 4.0: A Special Insight with the Usage of Cyber-Physical System

Abstract: Considered as a top priority of industrial development, Industry 4.0 (or Industrie 4.0 as the German version) has being highlighted as the pursuit of both academy and practice in companies. In this paper, based on the review of state of art and also the state of practice in different countries, shortcomings have been revealed as the lacking of applicable framework for the implementation of Industrie 4.0. Therefore, in order to shed some light on the knowledge of the details, a reference architecture is developed, where four perspectives namely manufacturing process, devices, software and engineering have been highlighted. Moreover, with a view on the importance of Cyber-Physical systems, the structure of Cyber-Physical System are established for the in-depth analysis. Further cases with the usage of Cyber-Physical System are also arranged, which attempts to provide some implications to match the theoretical findings together with the experience of companies. In general, results of this paper could be useful for the extending on the theoretical understanding of Industrie 4.0. Additionally, applied framework and prototypes based on the usage of Cyber-Physical Systems are also potential to help companies to design the layout of sensor nets, to achieve coordination and controlling of smart machines, to realize synchronous production with systematic structure, and to extend the usage of information and communication technologies to the maintenance scheduling.

From Monolith to Microservices: Lessons Learned on an Industrial Migration to a Web Oriented Architecture

Abstract: MGDIS SA is a software editing company that underwent a major strategic and technical change during the past three years, investing 17 300 man. Days rewriting its core business software from monolithic architecture to a Web Oriented Architecture using microservices. The paper presents technical lessons learned during and from this migration by addressing three crucial questions for a successful context-adapted migration towards a Web Oriented Architecture: how to determine (i) the most suitable granularity of micro-services, (ii) the most appropriate deployment and (iii) the most efficient orchestration?

Towards Recovering the Software Architecture of Microservice-Based Systems

Abstract: Today the microservice architectural style is being adopted by many key technological players such as Netflix, Amazon, The Guardian. A microservice architecture is composed of a large set of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms (often via REST APIs). If on one side having a large set of independently developed services helps in terms of developer productivity, scalability, maintainability, on the other side it is very difficult to have a clear understanding of the overall architecture of a microservice-based software system, specially when the deployment and operation of the involved microservices evolves at run-time. In this paper we present MicroART, an architecture recovery approach for microservice-based systems. By using Model-Driven Engineering techniques, we leverage a suitably defined domain-specific language for representing the key aspects of the architecture of a microservice-based system and provide a tool-chain for automatically extracting architecture models of the system. The only inputs of MicroART are: (i) a GitHub repository containing the source code of the system and (ii) a reference to the container engine managing it. We validated MicroART on a publicly available benchmark system, with promising results.

Migrating Monolithic Mobile Application to Microservice Architecture: An Experiment Report

Abstract: The microservice architecture (MSA) is an emerging cloud software system, which provides fine-grained, self-contained service components (microservices) used in the construction of complex software systems. DevOps techniques are commonly used to automate the process of development and operation through continuous integration and continuous deployment. Monitoring software systems created by DevOps, makes it possible for MSA to obtain the feedback necessary to improve the system quickly and easily. Nonetheless, systematic, SDLC-driven methods (SDLC: software development life cycle) are lacking to facilitate the migration of software systems from a traditional monolithic architecture to MSA. Therefore, this paper proposes a migration process based on SDLC, including all of the methods and tools required during design, development, and implementation. The mobile application, EasyLearn, was used as an illustrative example to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed migration process. We believe that this paper could provide valuable references for other development teams seeking to facilitate the migration of existing applications to MSA.

Sancus 2.0: A Low-Cost Security Architecture for IoT Devices

Abstract: The Sancus security architecture for networked embedded devices was proposed in 2013 at the USENIX Security conference. It supports remote (even third-party) software installation on devices while maintaining strong security guarantees. More specifically, Sancus can remotely attest to a software provider that a specific software module is running uncompromised and can provide a secure communication channel between software modules and software providers. Software modules can securely maintain local state and can securely interact with other software modules that they choose to trust.Over the past three years, significant experience has been gained with applications of Sancus, and several extensions of the architecture have been investigated—both by the original designers as well as by independent researchers. Informed by these additional research results, this journal version of the Sancus paper describes an improved design and implementation, supporting additional security guarantees (such as confidential deployment) and a more efficient cryptographic core.We describe the design of Sancus 2.0 (without relying on any prior knowledge of Sancus) and develop and evaluate a prototype FPGA implementation. The prototype extends an MSP430 processor with hardware support for the memory access control and cryptographic functionality required to run Sancus. We report on our experience using Sancus in a variety of application scenarios and discuss some important avenues of ongoing and future work.

Local Cloud Internet of Things Automation: Technology and Business Model Features of Distributed Internet of Things Automation Solutions

Abstract: The hype concerning digitalization is increasing the demand for new generations of automation systems. Concepts like Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) give us models but do not tell us how to facilitate actual implementations. This article discusses the transition from legacy automation technology as defined by ISA-95 to highly distributed Internet of Things (IoT)- and system of systems (SoS)- based automation systems that fully utilize Internet technologies, thus enabling the implementation of Industry 4.0 and RAMI 4.0 models. Distributed IoT automation systems have a number of general requirements concerning real-time performance, security, engineering cost, scalability, and interoperability. Meeting these requirements is necessary to enable possibilities for a realworld implementation of IoT automation. A key concept is local automation clouds. The discussion is based on a particular example of such an automation integration platform, the Arrowhead Framework.

IoT-based production logistics and supply chain system – Part 1: Modeling IoT-based manufacturing supply chain

Abstract: The lack of reference architecture for Internet of Things (IoT) modeling impedes the successful design and implementation of an IoT-based production logistics and supply chain system (PLSCS). The authors present this study in two parts to address this research issue. Part A proposes a unified IoT modeling framework to model the dynamics of distributed IoT processes, IoT devices, and IoT objects. The models of the framework can be leveraged to support the implementation architecture of an IoT-based PLSCS. The second part (Part B) of this study extends the discussion of implementation architecture proposed in Part A. Part B presents an IoT-based cyber-physical system framework and evaluates its performance. The paper aims to discuss this issue.,This paper adopts a design research approach, using ontology, process analysis, and Petri net modeling scheme to support IoT system modeling.,The proposed IoT system-modeling approach reduces the complexity of system development and increases system portability for IoT-based PLSCS. The IoT design models generated from the modeling can also be transformed to implementation logic.,The proposed IoT system-modeling framework and the implementation architecture can be used to develop an IoT-based PLSCS in the real industrial setting. The proposed modeling methods can be applied to many discrete manufacturing industries.,The IoT modeling framework developed in this study is the first in this field which decomposes IoT system design into ontology-, process-, and object-modeling layers. A novel implementation architecture also proposed to transform above IoT system design models into implementation logic. The developed prototype system can track product and different parts of the same product along a manufacturing supply chain.

A software reference architecture for semantic-aware Big Data systems

Abstract: Context: Big Data systems are a class of software systems that ingest, store, process and serve massive amounts of heterogeneous data, from multiple sources. Despite their undisputed impact in current society, their engineering is still in its infancy and companies find it difficult to adopt them due to their inherent complexity. Existing attempts to provide architectural guidelines for their engineering fail to take into account important Big Data characteristics, such as the management, evolution and quality of the data. Objective: In this paper, we follow software engineering principles to refine the λ -architecture, a reference model for Big Data systems, and use it as seed to create Bolster , a software reference architecture (SRA) for semantic-aware Big Data systems. Method: By including a new layer into the λ -architecture, the Semantic Layer, Bolster is capable of handling the most representative Big Data characteristics (i.e., Volume, Velocity, Variety, Variability and Veracity). Results: We present the successful implementation of Bolster in three industrial projects, involving five organizations. The validation results show high level of agreement among practitioners from all organizations with respect to standard quality factors. Conclusion: As an SRA, Bolster allows organizations to design concrete architectures tailored to their specific needs. A distinguishing feature is that it provides semantic-awareness in Big Data Systems. These are Big Data system implementations that have components to simplify data definition and exploitation. In particular, they leverage metadata (i.e., data describing data) to enable (partial) automation of data exploitation and to aid the user in their decision making processes. This simplification supports the differentiation of responsibilities into cohesive roles enhancing data governance.

MicroThings: A Generic IoT Architecture for Flexible Data Aggregation and Scalable Service Cooperation

Abstract: The Internet of Things has been widely deployed in various areas of daily life through heterogeneous communications protocols. Each unstandardized protocol focuses on a specific IoT communication pattern. Inspired by the Internet architecture over which divergent devices can easily be accessed and a considerable number of applications can be run, we propose a generic architecture for IoT. This architecture supports two DIY areas: network DIY for data aggregation and application DIY for service cooperation. To connect these two DIYs, a centralized controller has been designed to provide standardized interfaces for data acquisition, organization, and storage, and to support elastic and supportive computing. With these properties, divergent devices can coexist in a uniform microworld, and rich services can be developed and provided on demand to interoperate with physical devices. This article discusses the background, design principles, and advantages of the proposed architecture, as well as open problems and our initial solution, which substantiates a novel IoT architecture and new research ground.

A Simple-to-Use BDI Architecture for Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation

Abstract: With the increase of computing power and the development of user-friendly multi-agent simulation frameworks, social simulations have become increasingly realistic. However, most agent architectures in these simulations use simple reactive models. Cognitive architectures face two main obstacles: their complexity for the field-expert modeler, and their computational cost. In this paper, we propose a new cognitive agent architecture based on the Belief-Desire-Intention paradigm integrated into the GAMA modeling platform. Based on the GAML modeling language, this architecture was designed to be simple-to-use for modelers, flexible enough to manage complex behaviors, and with low computational cost. This architecture is illustrated with a simulation of the evolution of land-use in the Mekong Delta.

A large-scale study of architectural evolution in open-source software systems

Abstract: From its very inception, the study of software architecture has recognized architectural decay as a regularly occurring phenomenon in long-lived systems. Architectural decay is caused by repeated, sometimes careless changes to a system during its lifespan. Despite decay's prevalence, there is a relative dearth of empirical data regarding the nature of architectural changes that may lead to decay, and of developers' understanding of those changes. In this paper, we take a step toward addressing that scarcity by introducing an architecture recovery framework, ARCADE, for conducting large-scale replicable empirical studies of architectural change across different versions of a software system. ARCADE includes two novel architectural change metrics, which are the key to enabling large-scale empirical studies of architectural change. We utilize ARCADE to conduct an empirical study of changes found in software architectures spanning several hundred versions of 23 open-source systems. Our study reveals several new findings regarding the frequency of architectural changes in software systems, the common points of departure in a system's architecture during the system's maintenance and evolution, the difference between system-level and component-level architectural change, and the suitability of a system's implementation-level structure as a proxy for its architecture.

MicroART: A Software Architecture Recovery Tool for Maintaining Microservice-Based Systems

Abstract: Microservice-based systems are characterised by a multitude of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms. The microservice architectural style strongly encourages high decoupling among microservices in order to ease their independent deployment, operation, and maintenance. However, there are situations in which having a global overview of the system is fundamental. In this paper we present the first prototype of our Architecture Recovery Tool for microservice-based systems called MicroART. MicroART following Model-Driven Engineering principles, is able to generate models of the software architecture of a microservice-based system, that can be managed by software architects for multiple purposes.

Developing of Industry 4.0 Applications

Abstract: The fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0 has become a trend topic nowadays, this standard-based strategy integrates Smart Factories, Cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things, and Internet of Service with the aim of extended the capacities of the manufacturing systems. Although several authors have presented the advantages of this approach, few papers refer to an architecture that allows the correct implementation of industry 4.0 applications using the guidelines of the reference architecture model (RAMI 4.0). In this way, this article exposes the essential characteristics that allow a manufacturing system to be retrofitting as a correct industry 4.0 application. Specifically, an intelligent manufacturing system under a holonic approach was developed and implemented using standards like FDI, AutomationML and OPC UA according to the RAMI 4.0

Automotive E/E-architecture enhancements by usage of ethernet TSN

Abstract: A huge upheaval emerges from the transition to autonomous vehicles in the domain of road vehicles, ongoing with a change in the vehicle architecture. Many sensors and Electronic Control Units are added to the current vehicle architecture and further safety requirements like reliability become even more necessary. In this paper we present a potential evolution of the Electrical/Electronic-Architecture, including a Zone Architecture, to enable future functionality. We reveal the impact on the communication network concerning these architectures and present a potential communication technology to facilitate such architectures.

An improved Cyber-Physical Systems architecture for Industry 4.0 smart factories

Abstract: The Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is the core concept of Industry 4.0 for building smart factories. We can rely on the ISA-95 architecture or the 5C architecture to build the CPS. However, both architectures emphasize more on vertical integration, and less on horizontal integration. This paper proposes the 8C architecture by adding 3C facets into the 5C architecture. The 3C facets are coalition, customer, and content. The proposed 8C architecture is a helpful guideline for us to build the CPS for smart factories.

Service-Oriented Reference Architecture for Smart Cities

Abstract: The trend towards turning existing cities into smart cities is growing. Facilitated by advances in computing such as Cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities propose to bring integrated, autonomous systems together to improve quality of life for their inhabitants. Systems such as autonomous vehicles, smart grids and intelligent traffic management are in the initial stages of development. However, as of yet there, is no holistic architecture on which to integrate these systems into a smart city. Additionally, the existing systems and infrastructure of cities is extensive and critical to their operation. We cannot simply replace these systems with smarter versions, instead the system intelligence must augment the existing systems. In this paper we propose a service oriented reference architecture for smart cities which can tackle these problems and identify some related open research questions. The abstract architecture encapsulates the way in which different aspects of the service oriented approach span through the layers of existing city infrastructure. Additionally, the extensible provision of services by individual systems allows for the organic growth of the smart city as required.

Data-Driven Information Plane in Software-Defined Networking

Abstract: The contemporary Internet has evolved from an academic infrastructure to a tremendous commercial network, serving as an indispensable information platform for human communications, but with inherent limitations such as complicated management and manual configuration To overcome these limitations, the basic Internet architecture has unleashed an unprecedented wave of innovation over the past decade, and introduced a promising networking paradigm, software-defined networking (SDN), often referred to as a "radical new idea in networking" SDN offers numerous potential benefits such as enhanced configuration, improved performance, and encouraged innovation in network architectures and operations, while undergoing unprecedented challenges due to the lack of global network-wide information Nowadays, the emerging data-driven thought opens the era of the fourth paradigm for science research and transfers the design philosophy of future networks, based on the large-scale data rather than the small-scale data We argue that the existence of a data-driven information plane in SDN can address these challenges In this article, we explicitly propose a data-driven information plane and extend the SDN architecture specifically We first overview the evolution of SDN, and then illustrate a novel SDN paradigm by introducing a data-driven information plane into the commonly accepted SDN reference architecture Finally, we outline emerging challenges and discuss future directions for further research triggered by a data-driven information plane

Reference architecture to integrate heterogeneous manufacturing systems for the digital thread

Abstract: The increasing growth of digital technologies in manufacturing has provided industry with opportunities to improve its productivity and operations One such opportunity is the digital thread, which links product lifecycle systems so that shared data may be used to improve design and manufacturing processes The development of the digital thread has been challenged by the inherent difficulty of aggregating and applying context to data from heterogeneous systems across the product lifecycle This paper presents a reference four-tiered architecture designed to manage the data generated by manufacturing systems for the digital thread The architecture provides segregated access to internal and external clients, which protects intellectual property and other sensitive information, and enables the fusion of manufacturing and other product lifecycle data We have implemented the architecture with a contract manufacturer and used it to generate knowledge and identify performance improvement opportunities that would otherwise be unobservable to a manufacturing decision maker

A Catalog of Security Architecture Weaknesses

Abstract: Secure by design is an approach to developing secure software systems from the ground up. In such approach, the alternate security tactics are first thought, among them, the best are selected and enforced by the architecture design, and then used as guiding principles for developers. Thus, design flaws in the architecture of a software system mean that successful attacks could result in enormous consequences. Therefore, secure by design shifts the main focus of software assurance from finding security bugs to identifying architectural flaws in the design. Current research in software security has been neglecting vulnerabilities which are caused by flaws in a software architecture design and/or deteriorations of the implementation of the architectural decisions. In this paper, we present the concept of Common Architectural Weakness Enumeration (CAWE), a catalog which enumerates common types of vulnerabilities rooted in the architecture of a software and provides mitigation techniques to address them. The CAWE catalog organizes the architectural flaws according to known security tactics. We developed an interactive web-based solution which helps designers and developers explore this catalog based on architectural choices made in their project. CAWE catalog contains 224 weaknesses related to security architecture. Through this catalog, we aim to promote the awareness of security architectural flaws and stimulate the security design thinking of developers, software engineers, and architects.

Intent-based management and orchestration of heterogeneous openflow/IoT SDN domains

Abstract: One of the main challenges in delivering end-toend service chains across multiple Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) domains is to achieve unified management and orchestration functions. A very critical aspect is the definition of an open, vendoragnostic, and interoperable northbound interface (NBI) that should be as abstracted as possible from domain-specific data and control plane technologies. In this paper we propose a reference architecture and an intent-based NBI for end-to-end service orchestration across multiple technological domains. In particular, we consider the use case of an Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure deployment and the corresponding cloudbased data collection, processing, and publishing services with quality differentiation.We also report the experimental validation of the proposed architecture over a heterogeneous OpenFlow/IoT SDN test bed.

Software Architecture of the Da Vinci Research Kit

Abstract: The da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) has been installed at over 25 research institutions across the world, forming a research community sharing a common open-source research platform. This paper presents the dVRK software architecture, which consists of a distributed hardware interface layer, a real-time component-based software framework, and integration with the Robot Operating System (ROS). The architecture is scalable to support multiple active manipulators, reconfigurable to enable researchers to partition a full system into multiple independent subsystems, and extensible at all levels of control.