UMR 5205
Digital Ecosystems
A (Rather) New Vision of IT
Lionel Brunie
National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA)
LIRIS Laboratory/DRIM Team – UMR CNRS 5205
Lyon, France
http://liris.cnrs.fr/lionel.brunie
Contents of the Course
Definition and Characteristics
 Distributed Systems Models
 Autonomic Systems
 Digital Ecosystems
Cyberspace and Digital Ecosystem(s)
 Use case – Emerging Applications
 Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital Ecosystem
 Security and Privacy Issues
2
Digital Ecosystem
Definition and Characteristics
3
Digital Ecosystems…
A very versatile metaphor!
IT industry, Economy, Business
SOA, Software Engineering
Networks and Information Systems
For us: Distributed Collaborative Systems
4
Basic Models of Distributed Systems
Client-Server (typically, the Web)
Peer-to-Peer (typically Bittorent and file sharing
systems)
Grid (typically, the CERN LCG)
Mobile agents
Variants → Course on large scale computing
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The New Frontier
Traditional models fail to model and implement highly
dynamic loosely supervised distributed systems
Alternative models
 autonomic computing → focus on autonomy and coordination
 cloud computing → re-centralize everything
 pervasive/ubiquitous computing → focus on user context
 Internet of Things → focus on interoperability
 digital ecosystems → an holistic vision
6
Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems:
towards collaborative systems
Autonomic Computing [Horn, 2001; Parashar and Hariri, 2005]
 analogy with the nervous system – notion of equilibrium
 observation: emerging systems and applications are dynamic
 survivability of the system  the system can adapt to environment
changes (incl. attacks, faults, disruptions…)
 basic operation loop of an autonomic system: Monitor-Decide-
Adapt
 sense
/ monitor the environment (context discovery), and analyze the
context
 plan a knowledge-based adaptation of the system (decision making)
 execute the change
 context- and self-awareness
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Architecture of an autonomic agent
KE: Knowledge Engine
M&A: Monitoring and
Analysis
Cardinals: performance,
configuration, protection,
security
L/G: local and global
control loops
S: stable state
A: adapted state
E: execute action
From Parashar and Hariri, 2005
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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems:
towards collaborative systems
Autonomic Computing [Horn, 2001; Parashar and Hariri, 2005] (cont’d):
characteristics/properties of a generic autonomic system
 Self Configuring
 Self Optimizing
 Self-Healing
 Self Protecting
 Context Aware
 Open
 Anticipatory
 Proactive
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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems:
towards collaborative systems
Digital
Ecosystems
(Distributed
Collaborative
Systems) [Boley et al., 2007; Damiani and his group @ Milan]
“A digital ecosystem can be defined as an open, loosely
coupled, domain clustered, demand-driven, self-organizing
agent environment, where each agent of each species is
proactive and responsive regarding its own benefit/profit but
is also responsible to its system.” (Boley and Chang, 2007)
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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems:
towards collaborative systems
Digital Ecosystems: Main Characteristics
 Loose coupling - Personal Engagement
 Equilibrium – Interdependence - Balance
 Local Interactions  Global Behavior
 Self-organization – Autonomy - No Central or Distributed
Control
 Adaptation to the Environment – Dynamicity – Evolutionary
System
 Collective (Swarm) Intelligence – Structured Relationship -
Responsibility
 Openness - Multiplicity of Ecosystems (cf. human social life)
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Autonomic Computing and Digital Ecosystems:
towards collaborative systems
Digital Ecosystems: Main Characteristics (cont’d)
 Cooperation – Collective/Swarm Intelligence
 cf. bees, ants, dolphins…
 swarm is a set of agents that can interact and that share a common
interest
 collective problem solving
 Communication  System Semantics
 DE => need of shared explicit formal semantics (formal languages)
 Link with some characteristics of the semantic Web
 A new way of designing/thinking distributed systems and applications
 Related to autonomic computing
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Is the “Cyberspace”
a (set of) Digital Ecosystem(s)?
(can this concept helps us
to understand our digital world?)
13
Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital Ecosystem
Ego-centric
 focus on the user’s interactions with her/his environment(s)
 personalization – context-awareness
Ubiquitous
 mobility
 simultaneous interactions with multiple ecosystems
Multi-scale
 comprise entities (typically, services) of totally different nature, origin
and operational characteristics
 from an embedded “thing” to a public cloud
 integration of data, information, knowledge from all sources
 huge mass of information
Digital Ecosystem
 see above
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Back to the “Visions” (Part 1 of the Course)
Seamless “weaved into the fabric of everyday life”
“Graceful integration”
Transparency of the “cyber infrastructure” (“vanish
in the background”)
User-centric
Conclusion: hard to imagine in 1991 – realistic as
an objective for the next decade
15
OK, it is not a
dream
but…
Is it a nightmare ?
16
Multi-scale Ego-centric Ubiquitous Digital Ecosystem:
Security and Privacy Issues
You are the hub and the source of information
 (supposed to be) sensitive personal information
Data exchanges, dissemination of information between multiple ecosystems with
various security and privacy characteristics
 un-alignment of security/privacy policies
 sensitive information leakage
You do not control, worse do not actually know, the environment
 Uncertainty
 Dynamicity
 Unpredictability
 Absence of trust, Anonymity
Big Brother can watch you, now!
 Your everyday life is seamlessly weaved into the cyberspace fabric: you are traced
 The cyberspace does not forget: traces cannot be deleted
 The storage and processing capacities are almost unlimited: your traces are/can be mined
See course on these issues
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Conclusion
New technologies enable / need / argue for new models, new designs
Whatever the model, some basic features






Autonomy
Collaboration
User-Centricity
Integration
Context-Awareness
Mobility
Digital ecosystems provide a holistic vision of emerging digital
environments
Some still largely open issues, esp. regarding interoperability
 The cyberspace as a digital ecosystem is the Babel Tower
A fantastic, however in some way dreadful set of opportunities for new
applications
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