A Blog of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Research activities and projects.
Continuum computing is seen as next evolutionary step after cloud computing, profoundly shaping the way software applications are built and delivered based around modern microservice architectures and serverless technologies. Complex software applications are decomposed, in part automatically, to yield the best possible runtime characteristics. The community around continuum computing is growing, and a growing body […]
Modern software applications need to accomodate many technical and business demands. Over the past decade, the dominant industry trend has been to decompose applications into smaller microservices and to deploy them as composition atop various cloud platforms and devices. More recently, more suitable abstractions were proposed to build and describe such software. Software becomes adaptive, […]
We conducted joint work with Université de Neuchâtel on improving the handling of Docker container images in the increasingly heterogeneous hardware environments. We propose to (1) finer-grained incorporate hardware dependency information in the image metadata, (2) leveraging heuristic analysis techniques to populate such information at large scale (although of course preferring properly curated metadata), and […]
Reproducibility is an important aspect of research. One particular concept of interest is FAIR principles. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable and defines a ‘best practices’ approach for research. However, complying with such a concept presents its own unique challenges: Some research tools rely on complex infrastructure elements and software stacks that are […]
At Zurich University of Applied Sciences, we are currently building a test track to link applied teaching with research and innovation. Such a facility allows for covering a whole range of topics: programming, autonomous driving, robotics, cloud, serverless, continuums, sensing, open data, data science, and various computing paradigms. We expect a video to be available […]
In an increasingly self-aware and knowledge-driven software world, understanding the execution behaviour of an application is mandatory for cost-effective delivery. This applies especially to cloud functions, because many complex applications are composed of those functions. Similar short-lived, event-driven processing models can be found inside databases and message brokers. This means systematic tracing of cloud functions […]
As applied sciences researchers focusing on new digital application designs implemented and deployed with multiple computing paradigms, we emphasise the practical nature of our contributions and the direct transferability to stakeholders in industry and society. In this context, we are happy to report that two system demonstrations have been recently accepted to be presented at […]
For software development to succeed in Switzerland, that is to justify the relatively high development cost, it is essential to offer unique advantages in terms of timeliness and quality assurance. At Zurich University of Applied Sciences, we are proud to have contributed a number of tools for quality assessment and linting especially for cloudware – […]
Software developers and service operators need log files to identify issues, detect anomalies and trace execution behaviour. The amount of generated log data is increasing, and often log files need to be kept for longer periods of time due to regulations. To preserve logs in a cost-efficient manner, they are typically compressed, at certain cost […]
In the context of our «Smart Cities and Regions Services Enablement» efforts, space (and to some extent time) are important dimensions. First, the digital transformation has an inherent spatial component. While the research application field is pragmatically scoped to cities and regions, indeed it spans a wider spectrum from households, quarters, districts to countries and […]