Operations and Maintenance Support for Smart Applications and Virtual Infrastructure Testbed

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This testbed allows researchers to configure heterogeneous resources in support of at-scale experiments that can span multiple tiers, from a single electronic board to multiple edge nodes in a city or even across its many nodes in North America. Under an integrated management system, the testbed can provide an experiment with conventional cloud computing resources (virtual machines, containers) as well as virtualized heterogeneous resources (FPGAs, GPUs, software radio modules, switches, storage, access points) and multi-gigabit speed network interconnectivity using software-defined networks. Researchers can thus access this very large pool of shared resources and configure continent-scale experiments with ease. The testbed supports research that will show how large-scale information and communications technology (ICT) can provide solutions to major socio-economic problems (transportation, air quality, carbon footprint, manufacturing) while at the same time offer solutions to fundamental challenges inherent in the growth of ICT, namely scalability, performance, energy efficiency, and carbon footprint. The research provides solutions to the next generation of communications: cooperative architectures for wireless 5G networks; compression and transmission of video signals; heterogeneous computing for wireless communications. The testbed will develop strategies for the transition of networks to software control through research in software-defined networks, network function virtualization, and management of virtual resources; and research to enhance the virtualization and programmability of hardware resources to improve energy efficiency and performance in datacenters as well in other tiers of the cloud such as the Internet of Things. The testbed will lead to methods to enable large distributed infrastructures to adaptively support large-scale applications as demand varies in time and space. Finally, the testbed will enable the next generation of applications that will leverage this multitier cloud, for example, control of cyber-physical systems such as collaborating autonomous vehicles, and management systems for multimodal transportation, smart grids, and smart cities. The applicants are a distinguished set of Canadian researchers including three Fellows of the IEEE and five Canada Research Chairs. The testbed is important to the team. It allows them to play a leadership role in introducing new concepts that can be proven through implementation. The team's research is important to the Canadian ICT industry, including service providers, equipment vendors, and system integrators, which already works closely with the team by sponsoring research as well as hiring students. The team trains 150 students per year. The research helps Canada create jobs to commercialize its outcomes and provides solutions in transportation, air quality, and carbon footprint.