These edge networks consist of a set of nodes situated at the end of a connection network. Some examples of these networks are those including mobile devices and personal computers. Internet applications are increasingly running on edge networks to reduce latency, increase scalability, resilience, and security, and permit local decision making.

Researchers working in this area have identified a few problems and LightKone will try to solve them using two scientific advances in distributed computing. More specifically, the researchers will use free synchronisation programming models and hybrid models to disseminate data, in order to create a natural combination on the edge network, which will ultimately lead to new scientifically tested programming models and algorithms that will be implemented in industrial environments and evaluated in large-scale systems.

Carlos Baquero, Paulo Sérgio Almeida, Manuel Barbosa, José Bacelar Almeida, Ali Shoker, Hugo Pacheco, João Silva, José Proença, Georges Younes and Vítor Duarte are the INESC TEC researchers involved in the project.

The LightKone will last until the end of 2019 and will receive a total of €3.5M from the European Commission. The kick-off meeting took place on 24 and 25 January at Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC, UMinho and FCUP-UP.

INESC TEC, March 2017