Meeting Notes Rolling Log

24/3/2021

What we have done:

• Matthijs: Worked on the edge resource management reference architecture paper, mainly on the reading list and a visualization of the reference architecture.
• Giulia: Took some time off in the last two weeks. Deployed Cassandra.
• George: Mainly reading papers, gathering more knowledge on edge computing and related fields. Focused on papers about orbital edge computing, soft container loading / migration, programmable networks.

General notes:

• We need to get an infrastructure up for doing experiments, this should be a priority for everyone. For now we will look into kubeedge and foggify

Planning:

• Matthijs: Deploy kubeedge, and look into foggify (mainly how these two systems can cooperate). Continue working on the reference architecture paper, rewrite the introduction and background, and make the contributions more concrete.
• Giulia: Deploy Foggify, YCSB and Cassandra. How can Foggify be used to simulate network traffic?
• George: Come up with a concrete research goal. Some potential promising research fields include soft container loading, programmable networks, meta-programming and network modeling.

10/3/2021

What we have done:

• Matthijs: Worked on edge resource management reference architecture paper
• Matthijs / Giulia: EuroSys artifact evaluation
• George: Exploring, reading, finding an interesting research direction

Notes:

• We need to make an experimental setup for all edge papers, especially for the NSDI paper that we plan on writing. We can't make much progress in the next 2 weeks as Giulia is taking some time off and Matthijs is writing a paper
• Frogify paper (https://ucy-linc-lab.github.io/fogify/) has an interesting and open source test setup
• Current idea for the system: 3 layers (sensor, edge, cloud), model network traffic between these layers in terms of bandwidth, latency and jitter using tc. This is important to model different network topologies.

Planning:

• Matthijs: Continue writing the reference architecture paper. Try to finish it before summer.
• Giulia: Takes some time off.

24/2/2021

What we have done in the last three weeks:

• George: Just started his PhD, so he is still exploring / reading papers
• Giulia: Working on a edge / storage vision paper, submission is this Friday. Started with a simple application setup for the edge using Cassandra
• Matthijs: Created a simple stateless machine learning pipeline for the edge. Started working on the reference architecture for resource management at the edge paper

We need to create an infrastructure on which we can run our edge experiments:

• Find a 'killer app' that all 3 phd students can use (Something with a shared state like an online game?)
• Simulate real world network delay between endpoints using tc
  • Need some trace or data about exact behaviour of real network traffic
  • This is probably difficult to find for 5g, so focus on doing this for 4g for the time being
• Create Usenix and ACM latex templates for offline latex compilation, and add them to github (instead of using overleaf)

Notes on the current edge application infrastructure

• Giulia: Try to avoid using epbf unless it is really needed for the next paper
• Matthijs: Try using either firecracker or kubeedge as a resource management / scheduling framework for the edge. These frameworks already have a lot of functionalities that you want.

To do for next meeting (10/3/2021):

• George: Determine what to do for a first paper
• Giulia: Finish writing the edge vision paper and submit it. Continue with setting up an infrastructure for stateful edge applications using Cassandra
• Matthijs: Continue working on the reference architecture paper, finish the introduction / background and create a selection of resource managers to focus on.

27/1/2021

Applications for the edge:

• Machine learning (object detection, face recognition etc)
• Federated learning
• Simple linear algebra kernels / benchmarks
• More: Stream analysis, video analytics, genome sequencing, online gaming

What hardware / infrastructure is needed:

• Raspberry Pi as a general purpose edge node
• Need to simulate network traffic to the DAS (4g/5g simulation)
• Need to throttle the Raspberry Pi, to simulate slower IoT hardware
• How to accurately measure energy usage of these devices?

Tools:

• Important to invest in tools for evaluation of all future edge papers
• Can be anything: Network (traffic shaping), infrastructure, applications, emulators etc.
• Make a list on github with the state-of-the-practice on edge computing
• Scan evaluation section of edge computing paper

Paper ideas:

• Benchmarking at the edge
  • Spec group worked on creating such a benchmark, but it was dropped due to there not being enough interested people
  • Do work in our current group for a few months, then maybe organize a workshop to bring in more people to this research area
  • Take a look at cloud benchmarks: How can we transfer it to the edge. Holistic overview: Only reporting energy usage or performance won't help, need to combine metrics to create a clear picture.
• Reference architecture for edge RM&S (Matthijs)
• Evaluating consistency protocols based on latency of used technology (Giulia)

Next meeting:

• Pick an edge application, research what kind of infrastructure / tools are needed to deploy this application, and deploy it. What part of it is edge specific compared to normal cloud solutions?
  • Machine learning, stateless (Matthijs)
  • Federated learning, self-driving cars, stateful (Giulia)
• Paper plan: What is the story, give a small pitch (+ write a paper introduction)

21/1/2021

• Finish github wiki setup
• Paper planning for 2021

13/1/2021

• What kind of paper do you want to write this year? Which venue?
• Setup Github organization + logo

Next meeting:

• What applications do we want to focus on?
• What hardware / infrastructure do we need?