Michael Boniface

Platform-as-a-Service Architecture for Real-Time Quality of Service Management in Clouds

Cloud computing offers the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of software services through the commoditization of information technology assets and on-demand usage patterns. However, the complexity of determining resource provision policies for applications in such complex environments introduces significant inefficiencies and has driven the emergence of a new class of infrastructure called Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). In this paper, we present a novel PaaS architecture being developed in the EU IST IRMOS project targeting real-time Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for online interactive multimedia applications. The architecture considers the full service lifecycle including service engineering, service level agreement design, provisioning and monitoring. QoS parameters at both application and infrastructure levels are given specific attention as the basis for provisioning policies in the context of temporal constraints. The generic applicability of the architecture is being verified and validated through implemented scenarios from three important application sectors (film post-production, virtual augmented reality for engineering design, collaborative e-Learning in virtual worlds).

An integrated content and metadata based retrieval system for art

A new approach to image retrieval is presented in the domain of museum and gallery image collections. Specialist algorithms, developed to address specific retrieval tasks, are combined with more conventional content and metadata retrieval approaches, and implemented within a distributed architecture to provide cross-collection searching and navigation in a seamless way. External systems can access the different collections using interoperability protocols and open standards, which were extended to accommodate content based as well as text based retrieval paradigms. After a brief overview of the complete system, we describe the novel design and evaluation of some of the specialist image analysis algorithms, including a method for image retrieval based on sub-image queries, retrievals based on very low quality images and retrieval using canvas crack patterns. We show how effective retrieval results can be achieved by real end-users consisting of major museums and galleries, accessing the distributed, but integrated, digital collections.

SCULPTEUR: towards a new paradigm for multimedia museum information handling

This paper describes the design and prototype implementation of a novel architecture for integrated concept, metadata and content based browsing and retrieval of museum information. The work is part of a European project involving several major galleries and the aim is to provide more versatile access to digital collections of museum artefacts, including 2-D images, 3-D models and other multimedia representations. An ontology for the museum domain, based on the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, is being developed as a semantic layer with references to the digital collection as instance information. A graphical concept browser is an integral component in the user interface, allowing navigation through the semantic layer, display of thumbnails, or full representations of artefacts and textual information in appropriate viewers and the invocation of conventional content based searching or combined querying. Semantic Web technologies are used in system integration to describe how tools for analysis and visualisation can be applied to different data types and sources. This supports flexible and managed formulation, execution and interpretation of the results of distributed multimedia queries. Combined searches using concepts, content and metadata can be initiated from a single user interface.

A Real-time Service Oriented Infrastructure

The advancements in distributed computing have driven the emergence of service-based infrastructures that allow for on-demand provision of ICT assets. Taking into consideration the complexity of distributed environments, significant challenges exist in providing and managing the offered on-demand resources with the required level of Quality of Service (QoS), especially for real-time interactive and streaming applications. In this paper we propose an approach for providing real-time QoS guarantees by enhancing service oriented infrastructures with coherent and consistent real-time attributes at various levels (application, network, storage, processing). The approach considers the full lifecycle of service-based systems including service engineering, Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiation and management, service provisioning and monitoring. QoS parameters at application, platform and infrastructure levels are given specific attention as the basis for provisioning policies in the context of temporal constraints

Dynamic Service Provisioning Using GRIA SLAs

Service Level Agreements (SLA) include quality of service (QoS) constraints and bounds that have to be honoured by the service provider. To maximise the Service Provider revenue while satisfying the QoS requirements of the agreed SLAs it is important to be able to perform a dynamic distribution of the service provider resources between the services and SLAs. This distribution should be based on the current status and predicted evolution of the QoS characteristics. This paper describes the experiences managing SLA obligations from a service provider perspective in a scenario where dynamic deployment of services can be undertaken. The main issues faced to deal with the management of SLAs in this context are detailed. The adopted solution, based on GRIA (a Service Oriented Architecture framework) is discussed.

On-Demand Dynamic Security for Risk-Based Secure Collaboration in Clouds

Industrial adoption of cloud computing for collaborative business processes is limited by their ability to meet inter-enterprise security requirements. Although some clouds offerings comply with security standards, no solution today allows businesses to assess security compliance of applications at the business level and dynamically link to security countermeasures on-demand. In this paper, we present a Platform-as-a-Service infrastructure that combines semantic security risk management tools with dynamic web service policy frameworks to support the mitigation of security threats throughout the lifecycle of a service-oriented application deployed within the cloud. The platform address the need to model security requirements, dynamically provision and configure security services and link operational security events to vulnerabilities and impact assessments at the business level. The Platform has been evaluated using a collaborative engineering design scenario and a proof-of-concept deployed at a multi-tenant cloud as part of the UK CFMS project. The work is being further enhanced in the European Funded SERSCIS project.

Grid-Enabled Workflows for Industrial Product Design

This paper presents a generic approach for developing and using Grid-based workflow technology for enabling cross-organizational engineering applications. Using industrial product design examples from the automotive and aerospace industries we highlight the main requirements and challenges addressed by our approach and describe how it can be used for enabling interoperability between heterogeneous workflow engines.

SCULPTEUR: Multimedia Retrieval for Museums

The paper describes the prototype design and development of a multimedia system for museums and galleries. Key elements in the system are the introduction of 3-D models of museum artefacts together with 3-D as well as 2-D content based retrieval and navigation facilities and the development of a semantic layer, centred on an ontology for museums, which aims to expose the richness of knowledge associated with the museum collections and facilitate concept based retrieval and navigation integrated with that based on content and metadata. Interoperability protocols are designed to allow external applications to access the collection and an example is given of an e-Learning facility which uses models extracted to a virtual museum.

Virtualised e-Learning with real-time guarantees on the IRMOS platform

In this paper we focus on how Quality of Service guarantees are provided to virtualised applications in the Cloud Computing infrastructure that is being developed in the context of the IRMOS1 European Project. Provisioning of proper timeliness guarantees to distributed real-time applications involves the careful use of real-time scheduling mechanisms at the virtual-machine hypervisor level, of QoS-aware networking protocols and of proper design methodologies and tools for stochastic modelling of the application. The paper focuses on how we applied these techniques to a case-study involving a real e-Learning mobile content delivery application that has been integrated into the IRMOS platform and its achieved performance.

Virtualised e-Learning on the IRMOS real-time Cloud

This paper presents the real-time virtualised Cloud infrastructure that was developed in the context of the IRMOS European Project. The paper shows how different concepts, such as real-time scheduling, QoS-aware network protocols, and methodologies for stochastic modelling and run-time provisioning were practically combined to provide strong performance guarantees to soft real-time interactive applications in a virtualised environment. The efficiency of the IRMOS Cloud is demonstrated by two real interactive e-Learning applications, an e-Learning mobile content delivery application and a Virtual World e-Learning application.