Federated AI and Workflow built on OpenIaC

Chunming Rong
Head, DSComputing, University of Stavanger, NORWAY
Chair, IEEE Computer Society Blockchain

The recent advance in information architectures require to interconnect resources from multiple layers of cloud, edge computing, and IoT with continuous interactions. The OpenIaC (Open Infrastructure-as-Code) – “The network is my computing”, seeks to augment existing Cloud Computing and networking solutions with support for multiple cloud infrastructures and seamless integration of cloud-based microservices. The OpenIaC ecosystem shall be populated securely among verified entities across a federation, with advanced, smart and agile protection mechanisms to manage the security and privacy of individual components. The system should proactively provide integrated end-to-end distributed platforms with automatic detection, analysis, and mitigation of cybersecurity attacks in the IoT-edge-cloud space. The OpenIaC initiative seeks to provide a common open forum to integrate and build on advances in cloud computing and blockchain, creating of an open-source hub with fine-grained access control for an open and connected infrastructure of shared resources (sensing, storage, computing, 3D printing, etc.) managed by blockchains and federations, based on the principles of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) among the federation of connected resources based on Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). The initiative has the potential to provide a path for developing decentralized AI platforms, business models, and a modernized information ecosystem necessary for 5G networks. The OpenIaC has a comprehensive new approach in all OSI layers from layer 2 up to applications that are built on underlying principles that include reproducibility, continuous integration/continuous delivery, auditability, and versioning. It gives the digital right and sharing control power back to the data creator, which is often considered as lost once it is shared today. It aims to create balance between data utility and privacy, thus creating a win-win situation between organizations and their customers.

Biosketch

Prof. Chunming Rong is the chair of IEEE CS STC on Blockchain and served as co-chair of IEEE Blockchain in 2018. He is also chair of IEEE Cloud Computing. He works as the head of the head of the Data-centered and Secure Computing (DSComputing) at the University of Stavanger (UiS) and as adjunct Senior Scientist leading Big-Data Initiative at NORCE. He is also co-founder and CEO/CTO of two start-ups bitYoga and Dataunitor in Norway, both received EU Seal of Excellence Award in 2018. He was the vice president of CSA Norway Chapter (2016-2017). His research work focuses on data science, cloud computing, security and privacy. He is an IEEE senior member and is honored as member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (NTVA) since 2011. He has extensive contact network and projects in both the industry and academic. He is also founder and Steering Chair of IEEE CloudCom conference and workshop series. He is Editors-in-Chief of the Journal of Cloud Computing (ISSN: 2192-113X) by Springer, and co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal “Blockchain: Research and Applications” by Elsevier, has served as the steering chair (2016-2019), and associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (TCC) since 2016. He has extensive contact network and projects in both the industry and academic. His research work focuses on cloud computing, data analytics, cyber security and blockchain. Prof. Rong has extensive experience in managing large-scale R&D projects, both in Norway and EU.