SIMUTools2012

More about Erol Gelenbe

Abstract: When renewable energy is used either as a primary source, or as the main back-up source to meet excess demand, energy storage becomes very useful. Examples of energy storage devices include electric car batteries and uninterruptible power supplies in data centres. More sophisticated examples include dams into which water may be pumped when renewable sources of electricity such as wind or photovoltaic are plentiful. Drawing an analogy between computer networks which store and forward and download data, and networks that furnish energy both from direct production and from storage, we suggest a model of Energy Packet Networks (EPNs). A formal framework under which EPNs can be modeled and simulated is suggested. We then discuss some examples of EPNs that can be analysed using a probability model. This talk suggests that a new field of modeling and simulation regarding smart energy management requires the attention of our research community.

More about Antonio Puliafito

Abstract: Cloud computing is the IT area with the highest growth in these days. It offers computing and storage services according to the public utilities model (such as energy and gas) and provides high value services, traditionally very expensive, at much lower costs - between 1/7 to 1/5, depending on the adopted pay per use model. In order to have such paradigm widely diffused, the provider of Cloud services has to develop adequate software solutions to:

• manage virtualized resources
• interoperate and federate clouds
• adopt pay per use models
• ensure dynamic access to available resources, ensuring fault tolerance, availability and reliability
• provide service level agreement management and QoS monitoring and prediction mechanisms
• provide adequate security, trustiness and privacy guarantees

The cloud computing market promises to quickly grow in the next years, thanks to the advantages it offers both at the provider and the client levels. Big players are very interested in cloud computing, such as Amazon and Google. In 2011 more than 80% of new software products was distributed according to cloud infrastructures and by 2014 roughly 1/3 of all new "business software" will adopt cloud. This has determined an overall market of about 19 billions of dollars in 2011 and new opportunities for developing cloud computing services will rise in the next 3 years for about 160 billions of dollars. Cloud computing also carries several open issues to be promptly addressed: services reliability, security and privacy, QoS guarantees are perceived as fundamental features to be addressed. Deeply understanding such problems, and the interests the clients devote to such issues, is one of the crucial aspects that will characterize the market in the coming years, as a wider adoption of such services will determine a greater awareness of inherent problems and limits. Cloud computing is quickly modifying the IT market, creating new business opportunities and paving the way towards innovation. In the following 5 years analysts foresee that investments in cloud based services will grow three times, if compared with the current ones (reaching 9% of the whole IT market). What is really surprising is that Cloud computing will represent the 25% of IT investments in 2012 and about 34% in 2013. Cloud-based services are entering a growing trend that experts believe will not be touched by current financial crisis. This keynote introduces the main principles of cloud computing, highlighting innovation and problems to be addressed. Keeping an eye to business opportunities, technological aspects will be discussed together with concepts related to services reliability and performance. The Clever middleware will be presented, concepts of volunteer contribution (Cloud@Home) will be introduced and some modeling issues will be discussed to rise the attention towards the new challenges related to the adoption of the cloud computing paradigm.