What is XIFI?
XIFI is a project of the European Public-Private-Partnership on Future Internet (FI-PPP) programme. In this context XIFI is the project responsible for the capacity building part of the programme.
XIFI will pave the way for the establishment of a common European market for large-scale trials for Future Internet and Smart Cities through the creation of a sustainable pan-European federation of Future Internet test infrastructures. The XIFI open federation will leverage existing public investments in advanced infrastructures and support advanced large-scale deployment of FI-PPP early trials across a multiplicity of heterogeneous environments and sector use cases that should be sustained beyond the FI-PPP programme.
For more details what exactly the contribution of the ICCLab to this project is see: The FI-PPP ZuFi Node
Activities
Integrate infrastructure components, with functional components that satisfy the interoperability requirements for the GEs of the FI-WARE core platform
ensure that each infrastructure site is able to offer access to its services through open interfaces as specified by the FI-PPP collaboration agreement terms and the new governance model agreed at the FI-PPP programme level support the infrastructure sites that exist in the early trial projects to adapt and upgrade their services and functionality support more of the existing infrastructures, identified by INFINITY, to adapt and upgrade their services and functionality leverage the experience and knowledge of federation of testbeds that has been gained by the FIRE initiative develop processes and mechanisms to validate that each site, which joins the XIFI federation, is able to provide the required services and thus is able to support the early trials and phase III (expansion phase) of the programme develop the necessary business incentives, in order to lay the ground work for a sustainable ecosystem beyond the horizon of the FI-PPP programme seek the cooperation with the FI-PPP Programme Facilitation and Support project as well as the technology foundation, the usage areas and early trials projects utilise, where appropriate, the infrastructure investments and project support provided by GÉANT and its connected NREN‘s and global partners who are involved in similar initiatives particularly in North America (GENI) and Asia
Main XIFI planned outcomes
Integration of selected infrastructures into a federated facility and its deployment, operation and support to provide capacity to meet the needs of the FI-PPP phase II trials. Initially the federation of infrastructures will consist of five nodes located in five different European countries enabled with the Technology Foundation services (FI-PPP project FI-WARE) to be ready before the start of FI-PPP phase III. This initial core backbone will be enlarged to 15 nodes during the second year with new local and regional infrastructures. The selection of appropriate infrastructures will be based on the work and the capacities repository (www.xipi.eu) of the Capacity Building support action (project INFINTY of FI-PPP phase I). Further relevant infrastructures originate in the new use case early trial projects, the FIRE facilities, Living Labs-related infrastructures, EIT ICT Labs-related infrastructures, and possibly others. This enlargement process will be the key to establish a marketplace for large-scale trial infrastructures.
Adaptation, upgrade and validation of selected infrastructures, through the creation of adaptation components that will enable infrastructure federation and monitoring and facilitate the deployment of FI-WARE GEs. The adaptation and update process will cover interoperability mechanisms at technical, operational, administrative and knowledge level, to be able to support the FI-WARE services with a guaranteed QoS.
A sustainable marketplace for infrastructures within the XIFI federation where they can be found, selected and used by the activities of the FI-PPP expansion (phase III) and in future initiatives beyond the FI-PPP programme. Special consideration will be given to Smart City initiatives, opening new business opportunities and providing sustainability beyond the XIFI project duration.
In addition the following will also be achieved:
The ability to efficiently replicate deployment environments to extend and validate Use Case Trials and to support the capacity sharing across Use Case Trials.
A pathway for innovators, involving and going beyond existing experimentations (e.g. FIRE and Living Labs), that enable large-scale trials to address business related issues, such as scalability and sustainability.
The provision of training, support and assistance including integration guidelines and the promotion of best-practice between large-scale trials and infrastructure nodes. These activities will facilitate the uptake and continued use of the FI-PPP results. They will address infrastructure operators, other Future Internet stakeholders including FI-PPP use cases trials, Future Internet application developers.
The creation of business models for the sustainability of the XIFI federation, through engagement with stakeholders and elaboration of value propositions, which expand the federation and maximize the impact of the project.
XIFI will demonstrate and validate the capabilities of a unified market for Future Internet facilities overcoming a number of existing limitations to the current set of Future Internet experimental infrastructures namely fragmentation, interoperability and scalability. XIFI will achieve this vision by federating a multiplicity of heterogeneous environments – using the generic and specific enablers provided by FI-WARE and the FI-PPP use cases and early trials. XIFI will extend its effort to include the results of other Future Internet services and R&D work, such as the Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) Initiative.
To facilitate the establishment of an infrastructure market, the federation will be open to any interested party fulfilling the technical and operational requirements that will be specified by XIFI, to participate. XIFI will define a number of incentives to attract the participation of infrastructures in the federation, through the creation of value propositions, including a service to validate compatibility with the FI-WARE GEs, and the opportunity to participate in the new Future Internet infrastructures marketplace under non-discriminatory principles.
XIFI will be carried out by a wide European partnership including major telecom operators, service providers, innovative SMEs, research centres, Universities, consultants and the infrastructure operators of the five initial nodes. This mix of roles and competences is necessary to ensure the achievements of XIFI are viable and sustainable beyond the FI-PPP programme. All partners have significant experience in the Future Internet activities and in collaborative programmes.