In recent years, the introduction of cloud services has completely revolutionized application implementations. Cloud computing has seen tremendous growth recently and has become the standard for running applications.

End users and devices connect to a cloud-based system where these applications are deployed. Accessing emails or storing documents over the Internet are examples of services that are currently run in the cloud.

Cloud systems reduce costs for enterprises because computing resources are requested through a cloud provider that is responsible for maintenance and upgrades to the cloud system.

"However, recent application domains such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities have introduced new challenges for traditional cloud systems," says José.

"IoT traffic has grown exponentially in recent years, making centralized cloud systems unsuitable for IoT. Traditional clouds cannot handle the stringent requirements introduced by IoT applications, as resources can be requested simultaneously by multiple devices in different locations," he continues.

"To deal with the limitations of centralized clouds, Fog Computing was introduced. Cloud computing is a centralized system, while Fog is a decentralized infrastructure. Fog can be thought of as an intermediary between the local computing hardware and the cloud. It controls what information should be sent to the cloud and what information can be processed locally. Some things are better processed locally which mainly increases the speed and reduces the needed bandwidth," explains José.

"In my PhD, I investigated how Fog Computing can increase the efficiency of cloud systems so that IoT applications can function flawlessly," he concludes.

Read a more detailed summary or the entire PhD

PhD Title: Efficient Resource Allocation in a Fog Computing Environment

“I have always been passionate about Telecommunications. And when I started my Ph.D., the IoT was booming and companies and researchers were concerned about how to properly deploy these services in the cloud. I love to find answers to these problems. This book represents five incredible years of my doctoral studies. I had several amazing moments that I will always remember during my life: starting living in another country, traveling outside Europe, a lot of brainstorming discussions, hard work, meeting great collaborators, and so much more. I am very grateful for that”

José Santos was born in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal in 1992. He obtained his M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computers Engineering in July 2015 from the University of Porto, Portugal.

Then, he was a Research Intern at PROEF Group, where he was involved in EU-funded projects. In February 2017, he started his Ph.D. at IDLab, Ghent University-imec, on the topic of resource allocation in Fog Computing in the Department of Information Technology, promoted by Prof. Filip De Turck and Dr. Tim Wauters.

His research focuses on efficient allocation strategies in fog-cloud infrastructures, especially for Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart City applications. His research interests include Cloud and Fog Computing, IoT, Software-Defined Networking, Service Function Chaining, and Reinforcement Learning.

During his Ph.D. research, he contributed as a first author towards 16 publications, of which 5 are A1 journal articles, 1 is a Book Chapter, and 10 are conference papers.

Contact: José Pedro Pereira dos Santos,  Filip De Turck, Tim Wauters

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Editor: Jeroen Ongenae - Illustrator: Roger Van Hecke