UNITE: Integrated IoT-Edge-Cloud Continuum

Abstract

Although current edge and cloud systems offer amazing services that we could not even dream of a few years ago, end users cannot really benefit from them due to their high complexity: there are so many heterogeneous devices, protocols and development frameworks across the IoT-edge-cloud continuum. This complexity also prevents solving performance problems (such as server congestion or network congestion), as the main ideas only focus on a small part of the problem, e.g. how to solve a network problem without considering computing resources. This paper introduces the UNITE framework: a set of virtualization layers (computing, networking, and storage) that integrate a complete IoT-edge-cloud architecture and provides a simple interface for end users. UNITE also addresses performance issues by finding holistic solutions that look at the architecture as a whole. In addition, our framework also predicts emerging problems and proactively addresses them in advance before they occur.