ESFRI SLICES Test Platform
Digital Infrastructures and the future Internet including 5G and beyond technologies are the
main enabling factors contributing to the digital transformation of our society. The COVID-19
crisis has demonstrated the vital role of digital infrastructures and showed they should be
reinforced. Their design, deployment and operation are critical, calling for a scientific
instrument to support the research in this domain for computer science and infrastructure
researchers, as well as for data driven scientific applications involving interdisciplinary
aspects.
SLICES ambitions to become an impactful RI in Digital Sciences including concerns
regarding energy consumption and the implementation of the green deal. It fully aligns with
the ESFRI White Paper, as a response to the new challenges lying ahead for Europe.
Research and innovation in this domain represent an industrial need, a sovereignty concern,
a security threat and an economic and societal development opportunity.
SLICES will make a fundamental contribution to research and innovation in Digital Sciences
and Infrastructures, future Internet technologies, future smart networks and services. This
encompasses the full range of network, computing, and storage functions required for “ondemand” services across many verticals, and addresses new complex research challenges, supporting disruptive science in IoT, networks and distributed systems such as, e.g., 5G & beyond, NFV, IoT, Cloud/Edge.
SLICES has been selected for the ESFRI 2021 roadmap: https://www.esfri.eu/esfri-roadmap-2021
EMPOWER
EMPOWER is a Horizon 2020 funded project. It has the ambition to accelerate the joint development between the EU and the US, related to advanced wireless platforms targeting the new connectivity frontiers beyond 5G. EMPOWER targets the creation of a joint EU-US advanced wireless ecosystem.
Our objectives are:
• Engage with the EU-US communities working on Advanced Wireless Platforms research and development, in particular the US NSF PAWR and the EU H2020/FP9.
• Develop and recommend a common EU-US strategic collaboration agenda on Advanced Wireless Platforms.
An important output of EMPOWER will be in the form of recommendations on technologies and experimentation methodologies for future wireless experimentation objectives. EMPOWER will promote the use of test platforms and work with the community to make experiments simpler.
Empower is addressing topics related to open source software components tu support network disaggregation, platforms need to support AI functionalities, technology roadmap.
NFV Optimization
We deal with the new challenges related to the deployment of Virtual Network Functions. There are important questions to address related to the best location of these functions, their migration, routing and congestion control.
Another specific issue is dealing with efficient tools to measure NFV resource consumtion and performance. Contributions can be found in the publication section.