Beyond the cloud: the future computing and storage infrastructure

Technological innovations such as cloud computing, the internet of things, big data and Wi-Fi networks have led to applications unimaginable a few decades ago and an increase in the quality of life, an improvement in business decisions thanks to data analysis, etc. This has led to new computing paradigms such as cloud computing, fog computing, edge computing, and blockchain.

In this context, the EDGEDATA-CM project, of which the IMDEA Networks Institute of Spain has been a part, with Antonio Fernández Anta as principal investigator, has worked to propose new architectures and hybrid solutions that combine these computations. As Fernández Anta points out: “The main challenge facing the project was to advance in the seamless integration of cloud computing, edge computing and fog computing, from the point of view of end users. This integration was identified as very important when the project was conceived, and is increasingly so. In fact, it has received a name: edge to cloud continuum”.

“The project (continues the researcher) has made progress on a fundamental problem: how to integrate these computations, which will most likely be the computing and storage infrastructure that will prevail in the next decade, and any contribution that leads to its development will be fundamental. At IMDEA Networks we deal with the problem of trust. In a cloud system, users have only one entity to deal with, the cloud provider. When cloud, edge, and fog mix, we have multiple entities that need to collaborate to better serve the end-user, but may have competing business and economic interests…”

In this context, the project has allowed the development of distributed technology to share data in a reliable way. Researchers have defined and prepared data structures that generalize distributed ledgers (such as blockchains), but are much more scalable and guarantee a higher level of consistency than existing systems.

The collective effort has meant significant progress, as Fernández Anta underlines: “Thanks to the collaboration between research groups with different skills and abilities, the quality of the end-user experience will improve. The integration of ‘cloud-edge-fog’ gives them the possibility of having the best of each world, adjusted to the corresponding needs. For example, when using latency-sensitive streaming services, edge computing will be used, while the cloud will be used when high-performance computing is needed, and the switch from one to the other will be done automatically and will not be visible to the user. public”.

Symbolic artist’s rendering of the future computing infrastructure beyond the cloud and its global reach. (Illustration: Amazings/NCYT)

The tangible results of the project include the new technologies developed, proof of concept for the implementation of many of these technologies, and even their integration into the new products of various companies with which the researchers maintain close collaboration. In any case, there is still a long way to go, since the integration of the cloud and the edge, as proposed in the project, has not been fully carried out, and there are still aspects of research to be resolved in this regard. “The work of IMDEA Networks researchers in particular (adds Fernández Anta) consists of exploring new concurrent objects that can be used to coordinate competing agents, and building new services with them”. (Source: IMDEA Networks)