## 3 A Framework for the IoT-Edge-Cloud Continuum
### The Runtime Layer
#### 3.3.1. Cloud-Fog Level  
* **Network Slice Manager [50]:** The Slice Manager is tasked with managing shared network infrastructure resources for the creation of _slices_. It manages a variety of resources, including compute, network, and access network resources, ensuring they are registered, retrieved, and deleted as needed. To optimize the process of resource allocation, resources are subdivided into smaller segments, known as _chunks_, which are tailored based on tenant requirements and the need for isolated networking. Moreover, the Slice Manager is responsible for overseeing the entire lifecycle of slices, which are collections of resource chunks belonging to a specific user or vertical. By effectively managing shared resources and slices throughout their lifecycle, the Slice Manager helps ensure that users and verticals have the resources they need to succeed. * **Network RAN controller [51]:** The RAN controller is a virtualized architecture that manages and controls radio access in cellular and wireless networks. It separates the processing and control functions from the radio network and centralizes them in a data center. Consequently, it allows for greater efficiency in the network by managing and optimizing the use of radio resources, including frequency and power, based on real-time demand. * **Kentyou DataHub:** The Kentyou DataHub is a modular platform built on top of Eclipse sensiNact [52], which is an open-source platform able to collect, analyze, and make sense of data from heterogeneous sources. The DataHub provides interoperability by means of various data bridges (also known as _southbound providers_) that facilitate access to data sources and application bridges (also known as _northbound providers_) that provide the protocols to interact with the data models held by sensiNact. The platform is constructed over OSGi, thus allowing a quick integration of heterogeneous infrastructures and the dynamic addition, update, and removal of modules at runtime. Lastly, the adaptability of this module extends beyond the cloud-fog level, as it can also be effectively deployed at the edge level. * **Kentyou Eye:**[53] The Kentyou Eye 1.0 is a software suite that can aggregate data from multiple Eclipse sensiNact and/or Kentyou DataHub instances and provide visualization of their values. It consists of two main components:
* **Kentyou UI:*
* A browser-based tool for visualizing data in various temporal and spatial granularities. * **Kentyou AI:*
* A component which comes along with a number of integrated AI/ML services allowing forecasts, optimizations, and AI-based decision making. It supports new AI services by plugging them into its AI service management mechanism, allowing parameterized executions to provide multiple results from the same AI model, the persistent storage of models/results, and dynamic re-training. * **ARCA Trusted OS [54]:** A hardened Linux-based micro-distribution, which provides robust protection against system intrusions and prevents data compromise within containers deployed on-premises, on the cloud, and at the edge. At its core, ARCA Trusted OS combines the strength of a hardened OS with a secure Kubernetes orchestrator, ensuring the security and isolation of the infrastructure's critical components, and minimizing the risk of unauthorized access or tampering. By leveraging confidential computing technologies and hardware-based security features, ARCA Trusted OS enables applications and workloads to operate in secure enclaves, ensuring that sensitive data remain protected even from the underlying infrastructure. * **ARCA Key Management System (KMS) [55]:** ARCA KMS provides access to cryptographic capabilities using different types of cryptographic backends like OpenSSL, HSMs, TPMs, and post-quantum crypto cores. The used backend is completely transparent to the user application who only interacts with the gRPC API. The RPC requests are transported over HTTP/2 and can be encoded in various ways, including protocol buffers.