Digital Ecosystems A (Rather) New Vision of IT

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Digital EcosystemsA (Rather) New Vision of IT
Lionel Brunie National Institute of Applied
Sciences (INSA) LIRIS Laboratory/DRIM Team UMR
CNRS 5205 Lyon, France http//liris.cnrs.fr/lione
l.brunie
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Contents of the Course

• Definition and Characteristics
• Distributed Systems Models
• Autonomic Systems
• Digital Ecosystems
• Cyberspace and Digital Ecosystem(s)
• Use case Emerging Applications
• Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital
  Ecosystem
• Security and Privacy Issues

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Digital EcosystemDefinition and Characteristics
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Digital Ecosystems A very versatile metaphor!

• IT industry, Economy, Business
• SOA, Software Engineering
• Networks and Information Systems
• For us Distributed Collaborative Systems

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Basic Models of Distributed Systems

• Client-Server (typically, the Web)
• Peer-to-Peer (typically Bittorent and file
  sharing systems)
• Grid (typically, the CERN LCG)
• Mobile agents
• Variants ? Course on large scale computing

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The New Frontier

• Traditional models fail to model and implement
  highly dynamic loosely supervised distributed
  systems
• Alternative models
• autonomic computing ? focus on autonomy and
  coordination
• cloud computing ? re-centralize everything
• pervasive/ubiquitous computing ? focus on user
  context
• Internet of Things ? focus on interoperability
• digital ecosystems ? an holistic vision

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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems
towards collaborative systems

• Autonomic Computing Horn, 2001 Parashar and
  Hariri, 2005
• analogy with the nervous system notion of
  equilibrium
• observation emerging systems and applications
  are dynamic
• survivability of the system ? the system can
  adapt to environment changes (incl. attacks,
  faults, disruptions)
• basic operation loop of an autonomic system
  Monitor-Decide-Adapt
• sense / monitor the environment (context
  discovery), and analyze the context
• plan a knowledge-based adaptation of the system
  (decision making)
• execute the change
• context- and self-awareness

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Architecture of an autonomic agent
KE Knowledge Engine MA Monitoring and
Analysis Cardinals performance,
configuration, protection, security L/G local
and global control loops S stable state A
adapted state E execute action
From Parashar and Hariri, 2005
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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems
towards collaborative systems

• Autonomic Computing Horn, 2001 Parashar and
  Hariri, 2005 (contd) characteristics/properties
  of a generic autonomic system
• Self Con?guring
• Self Optimizing
• Self-Healing
• Self Protecting
• Context Aware
• Open
• Anticipatory
• Proactive

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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems
towards collaborative systems

• Digital Ecosystems (Distributed Collaborative
  Systems) Boley et al., 2007 Damiani and his
  group _at_ Milan
• A digital ecosystem can be defined as an open,
  loosely coupled, domain clustered, demand-driven,
  self-organizing agent environment, where each
  agent of each species is proactive and responsive
  regarding its own benefit/profit but is also
  responsible to its system. (Boley and Chang,
  2007)

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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems
towards collaborative systems

• Digital Ecosystems Main Characteristics
• Loose coupling - Personal Engagement
• Equilibrium Interdependence - Balance
• Local Interactions ? Global Behavior
• Self-organization Autonomy - No Central or
  Distributed Control
• Adaptation to the Environment Dynamicity
  Evolutionary System
• Collective (Swarm) Intelligence Structured
  Relationship - Responsibility
• Openness - Multiplicity of Ecosystems (cf. human
  social life)

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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems
towards collaborative systems

• Digital Ecosystems Main Characteristics (contd)
• Cooperation Collective/Swarm Intelligence
• cf. bees, ants, dolphins
• swarm is a set of agents that can interact
  and that share a common interest
• collective problem solving
• Communication ? System Semantics
• DE gt need of shared explicit formal semantics
  (formal languages)
• Link with some characteristics of the semantic
  Web
• A new way of designing/thinking distributed
  systems and applications
• Related to autonomic computing

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Is the Cyberspace a (set of) Digital
Ecosystem(s)?(can this concept helps us to
understand our digital world?)
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Dream your (future) life in an (emerging) digital
world

• You are always connected to the cyberspace, you
  can access your data everywhere
• No more money, no more theatre tickets, no more
  boarding card, no more printed newspaper, no more
  books, no more music CDs (but still
  administrative papers, dont dream too much)
• Your car (sometimes) drives for you
• You live in a (fairly? rather?) smart home
• You participate in multiple digital social
  networks (incl. online games)
• Your browser is proactive
• There are digital services everywhere The city
  is smart
• ICT is at last pervasive digital services adapt
  their behavior to you and your environment (e.g.,
  location, preferences, profile, activity...)

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Is it a Dream or the Reality ?

• You are always connected to the cyber space, you
  can access your data everywhere
• ? mobile Internet (3G/4G), clouds (reality)
• No more money, no more theatre tickets, no more
  boarding card, no more printed newspaper, no more
  books, no more music CDs
• ? smartphone, NFC, RFID tags (reality)
• Your car (sometimes) drives for you
• ? Intelligent Transportation Systems
  (ITS) (partial
• active development)
• You live in a (a fairly? Rather?) smart home
• ? Internet of Things (IoT) _at_home (not yet a
  reality)

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Is it a Dream or the Reality ?

• You participate in multiple digital social
  networks (incl. online games)
• ? It is not the future, but the everyday
  life (reality)
• Your browser is proactive
• ? Recommendation systems (more and more true
• still active development
• (e.g., FP7 EEXCESS project)
• There are digital services everywhere
• ? IoT, O2O, M2M, H2M (more and more true in
• manufacturing, not true for
  citizens)
• ICT is at last pervasive digital services adapt
  their behavior to you and your environment (e.g.,
  location)
• ? context-aware services, location-based service,
  ambient intelligence, ambient social
  networks (more and more true still active
• development)

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Congratulations!You are (at the center of) a
multi-scale ubiquitous ego-centric digital
ecosystem
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Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital
Ecosystem

• Ego-centric
• focus on the users interactions with her/his
  environment(s)
• personalization context-awareness
• Ubiquitous
• mobility
• simultaneous interactions with multiple
  ecosystems
• Multi-scale
• comprise entities (typically, services) of
  totally different nature, origin and operational
  characteristics
• from an embedded thing to a public cloud
• integration of data, information, knowledge from
  all sources
• huge mass of information
• Digital Ecosystem
• see above

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Back to the Visions (Part 1 of the Course)

• Seamless weaved into the fabric of everyday
  life
• Graceful integration
• Transparency of the cyber infrastructure
  (vanish in the background)
• User-centric
• Conclusion hard to imagine in 1991 realistic
  as an objective for the next decade

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OK, it is not a dreambutIs it a nightmare ?
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Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital
EcosystemSecurity and Privacy Issues

• You are the hub and the source of information
• ? (supposed to be) sensitive personal
  information
• Data exchanges, dissemination of information
  between multiple ecosystems with various security
  and privacy characteristics
• ? un-alignment of security/privacy policies
• ? sensitive information leakage
• You do not control, worse do not actually know,
  the environment
• ? Uncertainty
• ? Dynamicity
• ? Unpredictability
• ? Absence of trust, Anonymity
• Big Brother can watch you, now!
• ? Your everyday life is seamlessly weaved into
  the cyberspace fabric you are traced
• ? The cyberspace does not forget traces cannot
  be deleted
• ? The storage and processing capacities are
  almost unlimited your traces are/can be mined
• See course on these issues

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Conclusion

• New technologies enable / need / argue for new
  models, new designs
• Whatever the model, some basic features
• Autonomy
• Collaboration
• User-Centricity
• Integration
• Context-Awareness
• Mobility
• Digital ecosystems provide a holistic vision of
  emerging digital environments
• Some still largely open issues, esp. regarding
  interoperability
• The cyberspace as a digital ecosystem is the
  Babel Tower
• A fantastic, however in some way dreadful set of
  opportunities for new applications