ASMECC Workshop on Autonomic and Self-* Management for the Edge-Cloud Continuum

Editions

Scope

Edge-cloud computing continuum paradigms (e.g. edge, fog, mist computing) enable distributed and pervasive computing and networking to support a variety of novel ICT-based applications and services. They represent a deployment target and a management plane for the software elements (components, microservices, functions) making up modern distributed applications. The heterogeneity, pervasiveness, dynamism, and interplay with applications, that characterise the cloud-edge continuum provide significant opportunities and challenges, in terms of operational flexibility and efficiency. A major challenge lies in supporting the autonomic management of applications while respecting and opportunistically optimising against the set of constraints, requirements, and preferences indicated by applications, users, owners, and providers. Edge-cloud continua have to become intelligent, embedding cognitive-like capabilities for monitoring, reasoning, planning, and acting.

A number of specific issues arise, requiring novel ideas and techniques to be developed. For instance, how can MAPE-K architectures be adapted to work on the edge-cloud continuum? How may learning be exploited to refine dynamic deployment policies or anticipate changes? How can the learned models be explained? What programming models can be used to adequately express application logic independently of its deployment across the continuum? What formal specification languages can support architectural descriptions while enabling analysis of properties of interest? How can the infrastructure self-organise into resilient structures supporting connectivity and distributed task allocation? How to promote sustainability and energy/resource-efficiency across the edge-cloud continuum? These are just a few research questions that may be investigated. But the investigation itself requires tools, simulators, and benchmarks to conduct experiments in controlled environments without incurring in the costs of running experiments in real-world settings. This workshop solicits papers that investigate on the use of autonomic/self-* techniques to understand, design, and develop solutions on/for the edge-fog-cloud continuum. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Algorithms for self-adaptive/self-organising management of applications across the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Devops solutions for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Languages for the specification of deployments, applications, or management policies
  • AI techniques for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • ML techniques for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Mathematical methods supporting modelling and algorithmic solutions for the edge-fog-cloud and its management issues
  • Soft computing techniques for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Self-* techniques for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Theories and models at the basis of applications and platforms on the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Tools or simulators for the edge-fog-cloud continuum
  • Edge-cloud computing for the Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems
  • Edge-cloud computing for swarm systems