This document discusses extending the Apache VCL (Virtual Computing Lab) platform to support cyber-physical system education and applications. It presents a proof of concept that integrates physical devices like Raspberry Pis with cloud instances in VCL reservations. This would allow students to remotely access and control experimental setups combining physical and virtual elements. The approach aims to provide an open testbed for developing and studying scalable, reconfigurable cloud backends for cyber-physical systems.

1. Department of Measurement and Information Systems
Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
Towards Cyber-Physical System
Technologies over Apache VCL
Imre Kocsis, Áron Tóth, Zoltán Szatmári, Tamás Dabóczi,
András Pataricza, Gábor Guta
ikocsis@mit.bme.hu
2nd International IBM Cloud Academy Conference,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
2014.05.08.

2. About us
2
Budapest University
of Technology and
Economics, Hungary
Department of
Measurement and
Information Systems
Fault Tolerant
Systems RG

3. Virtual computing labs at BME-DMIS
 Apache VCL: 2013-
o First in Hungary
o In production;
extending scope
3
 Report on national TV
channel
o IBM expert & university
 TEMPUS public
foundation STEM
innovation prize
o EU agency
 2013 fall: Boot Camp
o by NC State team IBM Faculty Award

4. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs)
4
Ubiquitous embedded and networked
systems that can monitor and control the
physical world with a high level of
intelligence and dependability
Networked embedded systems everywhere
Clouds, „infusable” analytics, Big Data

5. From embedded to CPS
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Direct manual control,
„closed world” engineering

6. From embedded to CPS
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Direct manual control,
„closed world” engineering
Highly autonomous,
„cyber” backend,
environment, swarms, …

7. From embedded to CPS
7
Direct manual control,
„closed world” engineering
Highly autonomous,
„cyber” backend,
environment, swarms, …

8. Cyber-Physical Systems
 Different flavors
o NSF, EU, academia, industry…
 Still: it is here
o From smart cities & IoT to self-
driving cars
o Scalable, reconfigurable
backend is a must
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Health Care
Transportation
Energy

9. Cyber-Physical Systems
 Different flavors
o NSF, EU, academia, industry…
 Still: it is here
o From smart cities & IoT to self-
driving cars
o Scalable, reconfigurable
backend is a must
9
Health Care
Transportation
Energy

10. Case for cloud computing: a brain for a CPS
Video
surveillance
Citizen
devices
Env. sensors …
Traffic control Situational awareness Deep analytics Normal
day
Disaster
See: Naphade et. al (IBM), „Smarter Cities and Their Innovation Challanges”, Computer, 2011
Elastic,
reconfigurable
computing
Reconfiguration

11. Teaching CPS: an exercise in open questions
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What?
(Embedded systems, MDD,
sensor networks, semantic &
knowledge integration,
fractionated systems, M2M,
stream processing,
reconfigurable SW, cloud
platforms, …)???
How?
Theory:
model-based
approaches
Analysis &
synthesis:
lab assignments!

12. Extending Apache VCL for CPS
12
Apache VCL
Virtualized Data Center
...
Virtual
machines
Internet/CAN/LAN
Remote
client
Reservation
Establishing
connection
Remote desktop or
terminal access
 Core VCL
abstractions
appropriate
 We aim at
extensions
 Remote
physical
elements &
cloud

13. Cyber-Physical
reservations in VCL
13
 Goal: CPS education
 For an ensemble of
 physical devices and
 cloud services:
 Initialize, reserve, reset
 Out-of-band access
 Out-of-band observation

14. Proof of Concept
14
Time-shareable
arrangements
Cloud-on-Cloud
Apache VCL
VCL management network
VCL public network
Cloud
instance
Network-attached
phys. devices
Experiment
video stream

15. „Cloud on Cloud” capability in VCL
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Apache VCL
VCL management network
VCL public network
Apache VCL/OpenStack/...
CoC virtual networks

16. „Cloud on Cloud” capability in VCL
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Apache VCL
VCL management network
VCL public network
Apache VCL/OpenStack/...
CoC virtual networks
Bootstrap &
capture XaaS
Hypervisors

17. „Cloud on Cloud” (CoC)
17
 With nested
virtualization
 We have…
o virtualesxi
o VCL over VCL on that
 Some restrictions
apply; in VCL, no…
o storage virtualization
o network virtualization
o dynamic reservations N.B. we still love it

18. Integrating a field device: Raspberry Pi
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 Surprisingly popular
o In the target demographic
 Almost a lab PC: rpi VCL module
 Linux
o gentler learning curve
o In reservation: SSH access
 Useful set of interfaces
ASM C scripting Java Wolfram

19. Integrating field devices?
 Other device types: adapter computer needed
o E.g. a Rasberry Pi for an Arduino
o Scopes/spectrometers/…: already there
o Autonomous cameras/mesh GWs/…: already inside
 Lab.pm: starting point, needs rework
o Field devices: „sanitization” is stronger concept
o Harder work - Pi: reset + read-only SD netboot
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20. Educational prototype 1.)
20

21. Educational prototype 2.)
 Loosely based on NCL
SenseCloud
 Android devices as sensors
 Cloud analytics backend
 „Human in the loop”:
interdisciplinary
assignments?
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22. Immediate applications: cloud engineering
 CoC: teaching virt. & cloud
o E.g. we use it for an ESXi lab;
o support for local VCL devel in
progress
 Real-life: faults, errors, failures
o CPS: performance!
 Virtualization in the loop
o There are existing SWIFI tools…
o … and VCL can be a harness
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23. Immediate applications: people & labs
23
Internet/CAN/LAN
Remote
client
We have EE/CE in view;
chemistry, biology,
physics, …?

24. New deployment patterns
24
Cloud
On Cloud
VCL
Cloud
On Cloud
VCL
Cloud
On Cloud
VCL
Device at student
Everything remote
„Mixed mode”
+ external services!

25. Summary
 Cloud on Cloud
o Education of cloud
infrastructure specialists
o Application design &
„cloudification”
o Support of design for extra-
functional properties
 CPS education needs VCL
o Interdisciplinary
o Cloudification of traditional
labs
o All advantages of VCL
 Proof of Concept
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