CNS: Core: Small: Elevating the Edge to be a Peer of the Cloud

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Today, while mobile devices give users access to vast amounts of information, all such information flows from the Cloud. The Cloud denotes a data center endowed with hundreds-of-thousands of servers centrally located to achieve economies of scale. Increasingly, sensor devices (such as those found in the Internet of Things) are being deployed everywhere in the environment. These sensors produce data 24x7, which must quickly be transformed into actionable knowledge to better serve society. Unfortunately, sending these sensor streams to the Cloud for processing is suboptimal for several reasons including latency (i.e., time elapsed between sensing and actuation), saturation of the available network bandwidth (due to the enormity of the sensor streams), lack of actionable content (e.g., no action in front of a camera), and privacy concerns for the collected data. Instead of sending the sensor data to the Cloud, there is a need for having computational resources close to the sensors to quickly process the sensor streams and quench the uninteresting sensor streams at the source itself. Edge/Fog computing is a new paradigm that signifies such geo-distributed computational resources (e.g., compute capability located in an AT&T cell tower) to extend the Cloud's centralized utility computing model across the network edge, closer to where end-user devices and sensors operate. To fully unlock the power of Edge computing, this project proposes research to elevate the Edge to be a peer of the Cloud. To achieve this goal, we must develop new technologies that enable Cloud-like functionality across a large number of geo-distributed micro data centers instead of one large, centrally located data center. The facets of the proposed research include geo-distributed programming frameworks for facilitating the development of complex latency sensitive applications that span the Edge-Cloud computational continuum; geo-distributed data replication and consistency models that are resilient to coordinated power failures; and support for rapid dynamic deployment of application components while recognizing that both computational, networking, and storage resources are limited at the Edge. The proposed research will enable the rapid prototyping of applications of societal importance spanning healthcare, transportation, disaster recovery, and the like that utilize sensor platforms in the Internet of Things (IoT) to convert sensed information into actionable knowledge. When coupled with the proliferation of IoT platforms, the Edge has the potential to be the next disruptive technology, following in the footsteps of Cloud computing. In the Cloud computing revolution, the availability of powerful software frameworks enabled the development of complex applications such as search engines (e.g., Google, Bing), e-Commerce (e.g., eBay), and social networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). This proposal aims to spur the same revolution for Edge computing, thus unburdening application developers from the complexities of managing geo-distributed computational resources and freeing them to create next generation software. Planned activities involve in situ studies via collaboration with the Georgia Tech Police Department, which creates the potential for technology transfer and direct societal benefits beyond technical accomplishments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.