A LIGHTWEIGHT SOFTWARE STACK AND SYNERGETIC META-ORCHESTRATION FRAMEWORK FOR THE NEXT GENERATION COMPUTE CONTINUUM

Project Information

NEPHELE

Grant agreement ID: 101070487

DOI

10.3030/101070487

Project closed

EC signature date 17 June 2022

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 9 127 711,25

EU contribution

€ 9 127 711,00

Coordinated by

ETHNICON METSOVION POLYTECHNION
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEPHELE (A LIGHTWEIGHT SOFTWARE STACK AND SYNERGETIC META-ORCHESTRATION FRAMEWORK FOR THE NEXT GENERATION COMPUTE CONTINUUM)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The next generation Internet of Things (IoT) and Edge Computing technologies are evolving at a rapid pace. This evolution moves in parallel with the increase in the heterogeneity of the IoT technologies in terms of the production of different types of intelligent IoT devices, the support of diverse communication protocols, and the conceptualization of various information models for semantically representing entities in the IoT world. These trends make inherent the need for novel architectural approaches, able to support by design a full convergence and integration among existing and evolving IoT and edge computing technologies. Two main challenges arise. The first challenge regards the need for convergence of IoT technologies based on novel architectural approaches, able to guarantee continuous and seamless openness and interoperability of the plethora of existing and emerging solutions. The second challenge regards the need for the provision of an integrated meta-orchestration environment for hyper-distributed applications, where a synergy between cloud and edge computing orchestration platforms takes place to optimally manage applications’ end-to-end deployment and data provision over the continuum. To tackle these challenges, the NEPHELE project aims introduces two core innovations, namely: (i) an IoT and edge computing software stack for leveraging virtualization of IoT devices at the edge part of the infrastructure and supporting openness and interoperability aspects in a device-independent way; and (ii) a synergetic meta-orchestration framework for managing the coordination between cloud and edge computing orchestration platforms, through high-level scheduling supervision and definition, based on the adoption of a “system of systems” approach.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main outcomes of the NEPHELE regard (i) the VOStack open-source Software Stack for the virtualization of IoT devices, (ii) the open-source Synergetic Meta-Orchestration Platform, and (iii) the open-source NEPHELE Development Environment for Distributed Applications.
For the first outcome, we introduce the concept of the Virtual Object (VO). A VO is considered as a virtual counterpart of an IoT device. It provides abstractions for managing any type of IoT device while augmenting the supported functionalities through a multi-layer software stack, called as VOStack. The VOStack supports interaction with both physical IoT devices and edge/cloud computing orchestration platforms. It has three main architectural layers namely: the Physical Convergence Layer, the Edge/Cloud Convergence Layer, and the Backend Logic Layer.
The NEPHELE Synergetic Meta-Orchestration Platform supports orchestration of distributed applications over multi-cluster environments, following an intent-driven approach. A high-level intent is translated into deployment and operational policies that manage the lifecycle of distributed applications, while taking advantage of AI/ML techniques for increasing automation and distributed intelligence. Both compute and network resources are considered. A “system of systems” approach is adopted, where multiple agents collaborate for the orchestration of highly distributed applications, considering that high-level agents have the responsibility but not the control of the reserved resources across the continuum, nor the knowledge and authorization for proper horizontal scheduling of the various application parts.
The NEPHELE Development Environment is built as the combination of several systems; (i) the Highly Distributed Applications (HDA) Registry & Verification Engine which offer a novel way of harmonizing the storage, distribution and verification pipelines for the artifacts from the telco, cloud-native and custom Nephele ecosystems; and (ii) the development sandbox provides specialized utilities and an intuitive dashboard to develop and customize HDA graphs which natively connect to the lifecycle management of those applications over multi-cluster compute and network infrastructure.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Nowadays, a plethora of IoT platforms exist for management of IoT devices and groups of nodes. Each platform tackles part of the challenges related to interoperability, efficient data management, support of self-* functionalities, provision of generic IoT enablers and management of IoT applications deployment. In many cases, middleware solutions are required for supporting unified management of swarms of IoT nodes. In NEPHELE, through the release of a lightweight software stack, we aim to make available a set of software libraries and tools, able to manage the integration of IoT and Edge Computing mechanisms and coordinate the execution of IoT functions at both the physical (device) and virtual (edge computing infrastructure) level. The development and release of an open-source software stack (VOStack) that supports virtualization of IoT devices and functions with a twofold perspective (convergence of IoT technologies and unified management of IoT functions by edge/cloud computing orchestration platforms) is considered one of the main novelties introduced in NEPHELE.
In parallel, a plethora of orchestration platforms is available for cloud and edge computing applications, each one targeting a set of application needs. However, the highly distributed nature of such applications creates a need for adoption of synergetic orchestration schemes with dynamic and modular characteristics, where responsibilities for orchestration of parts of the application can be assigned on demand to different platforms. NEPHELE aims to provide an integrated environment for the next-generation hyper-distributed applications management, where IoT and edge computing platforms and orchestration mechanisms will interoperate in a secure and trusted way. A meta-orchestrator undertakes the role of efficiently coordinating the management of distributed compute and network resources, and the enforcement of AI-assisted orchestration mechanisms in the various parts of the compute continuum. Intelligence is continuously injected within the orchestration actions, exploiting advances provided by AI technologies in features detection and inference and leading to the optimal management of the interplay among edge and cloud resources.

Convergence of Virtual Objects with Edge and Cloud Applications

NEPHELE Meta-Orchestration Framework

Layers of the IoT Software Stack VOStack