CAREER: Enabling Edge-hosted Private Services via Unikernel-based Lightweight Virtualization

在物联网(IoT)时代，现有的移动云计算框架存在通信延迟长、终端设备的服务部署和通信接口不友好、难以随爆炸性处理需求进行扩展以及无法实现大规模个性化服务等重大局限性。该职业项目提出边缘托管私有服务(EPS)来解决这些限制。EPS的方法是在移动设备和云之间的网络边缘部署计算/通信中间点，每个中间点为单个移动用户执行一定的服务或优化。在实践中启用EPS是具有挑战性的，因为现有技术不能满足EPS的运行时要求。该项目的首要目标是通过采用基于单核的轻量级虚拟化来实现高效的EPS运行时。本研究将通过(1)实现一个可扩展且向后兼容的基于单内核的嵌入式虚拟化运行时框架，(2)为基于单内核的嵌入式虚拟化提供实时支持，(3)实现直观和EPS友好的嵌入式单内核开发，(4)支持简单实用的基于单内核的服务管理，从而推动基于单内核的虚拟化的发展，并为EPSS奠定基础。这项研究有可能通过缩小最先进的技术与在现实世界中采用单内核的实际需求之间的差距，为单内核的发展做出贡献，这是一种很有前途的资源受限嵌入式设备技术。该研究将实现一系列新颖而有效的技术支撑基于单核的虚拟化，这将极大地有利于边缘计算和物联网领域的应用和服务。该项目有具体的计划，将拟议的研究与课程开发、招募和支持代表性不足的学生以及K-12外展活动相结合。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the era of Internet of Things (IoT), the existing mobile-cloud computing frameworks suffer from significant limitations, such as long communication latencies, unfriendly service deployment and communication interfaces for end devices, difficulty to scale with exploding processing demands, and incapability to enable large-scale personalized services. This CAREER project proposes Edge-hosted Private Service (EPS) to address these limitations. The approach of EPS is to deploy computation/communication middle points, each of which performs a certain service or optimization for an individual mobile user, at network edge between mobile devices and the cloud. Enabling EPSes in practice is challenging because existing technologies cannot meet the runtime requirements of EPS. The overarching goal of this project is to enable efficient EPS runtime through the adoption of unikernel-based lightweight virtualization. This research will advance the state of the art of unikernel-based virtualization and lay the foundation for EPSes by (1) realizing a scalable and backward-compatible unikernel-based embedded virtualization runtime framework, (2) providing real-time support for unikernel-based embedded virtualization, (3) enabling intuitive and EPS-friendly embedded unikernel development, and (4) supporting simple and practical unikernel-based service management. This research has the potential to contribute to the advancement of unikernels, which is a promising technology for resource-constrained embedded devices, by closing the gap between the state of the art and the practical requirements of adopting unikernels in real world. The research will achieve a series of novel and effective techniques underpinning unikernel-based virtualization, which can greatly benefit applications and services in the fields of edge computing and IoT. This project has concrete plans to integrate the proposed research with curriculum development, recruiting and supporting underrepresented students, as well as K-12 outreach activities.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.