The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a key horizontal technology enabler within the 5G ecosystem, characterized by supporting the heterogeneity of end-devices, radio-access technologies, and services. Network slicing techniques allow to configure dedicated networks with assured resources to specific users or applications over a common physical infrastructure. This paper describes a novel end- to-end network slicing framework for IoT services in 5G systems, based on a Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) and central cloud architecture that permits the flexible and dynamic placement of micro-services encapsulated as Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) along the end-to-end path. The critical analysis of the validation results highlights the performance and flexibility gains of our proposal. It allows deploying end-to-end slices over a number of participating domains in a very short time, it is able to isolate slices with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, and shows great scalability in terms of number of connected end-devices and application services.

With the uptaking of virtualization technologies and the growing usage of public cloud infrastructures, an ever larger number of applications run outside of the traditional enterprise's perimeter, and require new security paradigms that fit the typical agility and elasticity of cloud models in service creation and management. Though some recent proposals have integrated security appliances in the logical application topology, we argue that this approach is sub-optimal. Indeed, we believe that embedding security agents in virtualization containers and delegating the control logic to the software orchestrator provides a much more effective, flexible, and scalable solution to the problem. In this paper, we motivate our mindset and outline a novel framework for assessing cyber-threats of virtualized applications and services. We also review existing technologies that build the foundation of our proposal, which we are going to develop in the context of a joint research project.

Fast, intuitive interaction combined with high quality results are very important aspects, which need consideration, when implementing a search engine. With this in mind, the project "improved destination input system for the UR-Walking application" aims at optimizing the destination input for the Campus Navigation Web-Application at the University of Regensburg. Improving this type of search system involves handling ambivalent search requests. For example, keywords like the name of a professor could generate a misleading result, because the professors' name could lead either to his office or to one of his seminars. In this paper, we describe our implemented approaches to cope with a vast spectrum of different search requests concerning the campus navigation application.

The global trend of Future Internet related experimentally driven research has gained a strong momentum. In this context sustainability and the best use of developed infrastructures are highly critical. While many facilities have reached a level of maturity that allows them to be opened up to a wider use, mainly the academic sectors have been targeted. The Fanning out Testbeds-as-a-Service for the EIT ICT1 (FanTaaStic) project explores best practices, has performed a gap analysis, investigates applicable business models and works out a concept for the operation of a self-sustainable commercial testbed service offering. For defining the operational model, an analysis of available tools and frameworks from past and current Future Internet testbed projects is being carried out, based on a standard framework that defines the required processes and applications for the carrier grade operation of telecommunication infrastructures and provisioning of services. The business model is defined as a gradually growing service offering, based on categories of a framework for IT Service Management in federated e-infrastructures. The applicability of both, the developed business and operational model for such a sustainable federation will initially be implemented and evaluated in 2014.

The emergency of cloud computing and Generic Enablers (GEs) as the building blocks of Future Internet (FI) applications highlights new requirements in the area of cloud services. Though, due to the current restrictions of various certification standards related with privacy and safety of health related data, the utilization of cloud computing in such area has been in many instances unlawful. Here, we focus on demonstrating a “software to data” provisioning solution to propose a mapping of FI application use case requirements to software specifications (using GEs). The aim is to establish a provider to consumer cloud setting wherein no sensitive data will be exchanged but it will reside at the back-end site. We propose a prototype architecture that covers the cloud management layer and the operational features that manage data and Internet of Things devices. To show a real life scenario, we present the use case of the diabetes care and a FI application that includes various GEs.

Experiments to move sensitive patient data into cloud based solutions, and their usage in mobile applications, were seen skeptically by users and authorities, as concerns about long-term safe storage as well as protected communication could not been addressed convincingly in these initial approaches. This paper introduces a new approach of a “hybrid” or “reverse” cloud, which combines the advantage of centralised distribution and maintenance of application-oriented software, while at the same time sensitive data remain in already certified, protected areas. The approach also uses an innovative modular software concept based on “Generic Enablers”, and is being tested currently in seven clinical field trials in seven European countries.

The first question addressed in the paper is "Why and how agent technology supports the design and implementation of Autonomous Decentralised Systems?" Subsequently, based on the main characteristics of the intelligent and mobile agents we assess the specific support agent technology collectively can offer. Finally a glimpse into the future of this technology is given. A critical evaluation of the agent technology vs. the traditional distributed object technology and RPC is undertaken throughout the paper in order to foresee possible introduction and evolution scenarios. The paper merely focuses on the aspects relevant to the providers of infoware technology, frameworks and products.

The paper outlines the work that has been carried out by European Telecommunications Network Operators within a EURESCOM project. EURESCOM project P612 was initiated in order to study and improve the level of automation between telecommunications network operators (TNO) within Europe by making practical progress, in the form of laboratory trials, with implementing automated capabilities for trouble ticket exchange, and Ordering/Provisioning processes.

Traditional approaches for network and service management are not suitable for heterogeneous, rapidly changing and extending telecommunications environments. The paper discusses the use of Java based intelligent mobile agents in the field of open system management It first presents a Java based mobile agent platform supporting the mobile management agents. Based on the mobility framework, the paper then describes an intelligence platform which supports the specification and processing of management solution knowledge implemented as intelligent mobile agents. The management solutions are viewed as Java based rules, which are organized into a hierarchy by the specialization/generalization relationships among the network situations which the management solutions are developed for. The proposed intelligence paradigm and the associated knowledge processing mechanism offer the advantages of object oriented development in a widely distributed telecommunications environment. The paper introduces an appealing alternative or extension to the current network management solutions.

Semantics plays an important role in the context of network management, both for clearing out ambiguities and for supporting management decisions. The current behavior-oriented semantic frameworks do not find wide acceptance in this context due to their complexity and lack of support for management applications. We propose a new semantic approach to network management. The semantics is defined by context-specific restrictions representing relationships between situations. By structuring the situation descriptions in a hierarchy, we build up a semantic framework for the network management which corresponds to the object-oriented development style and benefits from features like reusability, abstraction support, and accumulative developments.

Currently, international broadband ATM communication networks are managed mostly by manual operations. The situation is certainly not adequate to the increasing demands and the versatility of the broadband applications. The ATM virtual path service can be regarded as one step towards co-operative, automatic management of the international ATM broadband public network operator (PNO) networks. The article presents the study results obtained in the Eurescom P408 project on the TMN Xuser management interface for the monitoring and control of the Pan-European ATM virtual path service. The X reference point is located, as defined in the ITU-T recommendation M.3010, between operations system functions in different TMNs. The Xuser is defined as the interface between the private network management system and the public network management system, and is situated at the service management responsibility level of the TMN logical architecture hierarchy. The Xuser interface which is described, defines the set of messages exchanged across the interface to provide virtual path services to the ATM virtual path service users. To provide and control the public virtual path connections which cross several public network domains and connect two network access points towards the private network domains, the Xuser interfaces cooperate with the Xcoop interfaces, the latter being defined between public international network management systems and situated at the network management responsibility level of the TMN layered logical architecture.