Reference number : GC-2017-Q1-03381, amendment number : , agreement type : G, recipient legal name : de Lara, Eyal (University of Toronto), recipient country : CA, recipient province : nan, recipient city : Ontario, recipient postal code : nan, program name english : Discovery Grants Program - Individual, program name french : Programme de subventions à la découverte - individuelles, program purpose english : Current mobile networks are not able to support next generation applications that require low latency or that produce large volumes of data that can overwhelm the network infrastructure in a carrier network. Examples include wearable applications that assist individuals cognitive impairments, as well as safety critical applications, such as face recognition applications for airport security and surveillance. These applications require more computational resources than those that are currently available on mobile or embedded devices. The use of servers on the wide-area cloud, however, is also not an option as these applications require low response times, or involve processing of large volumes of data from multiple sensors and cameras. To address these challenges the research community and the telecommunications industry are exploring ways to add computation and storage capabilities to the edge of the network. These approaches, variously referred to as cloudlets, micro data centers, or fog, augment the traditional cloud architecture with an additional layer of servers that are located closer to the end user, typically one-hop away. 
This proposal puts forward a new vision that generalizes edge computing into a hierarchical cloud architecture deployed over the geographic span of a network. This vision will supports scalable processing by providing storage and computation along a succession of datacenters (of increasing sizes) positioned between 
the end device (e.g., smartphone, IoT appliance) and the traditional wide area cloud datacenter. We explore the use a new cloud computing model know as Function as a Service (FaaS) as the deployment mechanism for running applications on a hierarchical cloud architecture along the the geographic span of the network. FaaS, also known as Serverless computing, is a cloud computing approach in which the cloud provider fully manages the infrastructure used to serve request, including the underlying virtual machines or containers, the host operating system, and the application run time. FaaS applications are composed of a collection of light-weight stateless event handlers that execute on a run time environment that is managed by the cloud provider. The small size and stateless nature of FaaS handlers makes them ideal candidates for our hierarchical cloud computing vision., program purpose french : Current mobile networks are not able to support next generation applications that require low latency or that produce large volumes of data that can overwhelm the network infrastructure in a carrier network. Examples include wearable applications that assist individuals cognitive impairments, as well as safety critical applications, such as face recognition applications for airport security and surveillance. These applications require more computational resources than those that are currently available on mobile or embedded devices. The use of servers on the wide-area cloud, however, is also not an option as these applications require low response times, or involve processing of large volumes of data from multiple sensors and cameras. To address these challenges the research community and the telecommunications industry are exploring ways to add computation and storage capabilities to the edge of the network. These approaches, variously referred to as cloudlets, micro data centers, or fog, augment the traditional cloud architecture with an additional layer of servers that are located closer to the end user, typically one-hop away. 
This proposal puts forward a new vision that generalizes edge computing into a hierarchical cloud architecture deployed over the geographic span of a network. This vision will supports scalable processing by providing storage and computation along a succession of datacenters (of increasing sizes) positioned between 
the end device (e.g., smartphone, IoT appliance) and the traditional wide area cloud datacenter. We explore the use a new cloud computing model know as Function as a Service (FaaS) as the deployment mechanism for running applications on a hierarchical cloud architecture along the the geographic span of the network. FaaS, also known as Serverless computing, is a cloud computing approach in which the cloud provider fully manages the infrastructure used to serve request, including the underlying virtual machines or containers, the host operating system, and the application run time. FaaS applications are composed of a collection of light-weight stateless event handlers that execute on a run time environment that is managed by the cloud provider. The small size and stateless nature of FaaS handlers makes them ideal candidates for our hierarchical cloud computing vision., agreement title english : Servlerless Mobile Edge Computing, agreement title french : Servlerless Mobile Edge Computing, agreement number : RGPIN, agreement value : 250000.0, agreement start date : 2017-05-10, agreement end date : nan, description english : nan, description french : nan, expected results english : nan, expected results french : nan, additional information english : Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023), additional information french : Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier. (2017-2018 à 2022-2023), owner organization : nserc-crsng, owner organization title : Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada | Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada