In this era of virtualisation, the abstraction of underlying hardware resources and the prominence of tools for infrastructural automation have been key enablers for the deployment of distributed services at scale. The growing role of software in managing infrastructures and the DevOps movement, focused on the automation of infrastructure management, are targeting the challenges of increasing speed and quality of infrastructure management, thus lowering costs and enhancing security and trustworthiness. However, the market of infrastructure automation tools is fragmented, there is no single one to manage the whole lifecycle of infrastructure as code (IaC) and existing solutions do not address all trustworthiness and security aspects throughout the whole lifecycle. PIACERE will develop tools, techniques and methods enabling organisations to fully embrace the IaC approach through the DevSecOps philosophy. PIACERE will provide the first Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to develop and verify IaC. Exploiting Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), the IDE will enable developers to create infrastructural code at an abstract level. Using the novel DevOps Modelling Language (DOML), the DevOps team will generate IaC for different languages and verify its correctness at model and code level along with the corresponding security components. The IDE is one part of the complete workflow and will be supported with: 1) a canary environment to aid the simulation of the conditions of the production environment allowing the early identification of potential vulnerabilities and 2) an IaC execution Environment to automatically deploy, monitor and ensure that the conditions are met, incorporating self-healing and self-learning features. The integration, security first and IaC polyglotism arm the DevSecOps teams to treat and work with IaC as they do with traditional code, simplifying the design, development and operation of IaC, while increasing their productivity, quality and reliability

The grand challenge of this project is to create the basis for a paradigm shift in the way music is performed and experienced, by leveraging the new creative possibilities offered by the emerging Musical Metaverse. The consortium aims to achieve this ambitious challenge by means of i) a socio-cognitive breakthrough, by gaining a deep understanding of the emerging needs and concerns of contemporary musicians and audiences via collaborative design activities and neuro-physiological measurements; ii) a technological breakthrough, by developing radically novel concert platforms and devices that can exchange information among each other via ultra-reliable low-latency wireless networks, with privacy and security constraints; iii) a musical breakthrough, by creating novel concert formats that exploit the technological and socio-cognitive breakthroughs. This project uses an interdisciplinary methodology that combines Human-Computer Interaction, Engineering, Cognition, and Music, drawing from the scientific excellence of the partners. Industrial partners will provide know-how for proof of concept prototypes. Through this disruptive approach, the project will provide a pipeline to the technological development of a new class of musical interfaces and Musical Metaverse ecosystems, whose features will go substantially beyond current systems. The proposed approach aspires to effect a step-change in the design of musical interfaces and systems to musically interact online, resulting in a potentially high economic impact on the music industry. The envisioned technological advancements for the musical domain will provide key solutions for true real-time collaborative activities in the Metaverse in general. The project involves theoretical and experimental aspects, and is a high-impact endeavour from which basic science, EU industry and society can benefit.

MORPHEMIC proposes a unique way of adapting and optimizing Cloud computing applications by introducing the novel concepts of polymorph architecture and proactive adaptation. The former is when a component can run in different technical forms, i.e. in a Virtual Machine (VM), in a container, as a big data job, or as serverless components, etc. The technical form of deployment is chosen during the optimization process to fulfil the user’s requirements and needs. The quality of the deployment is measured by a user defined and application specific utility. Depending on the application’s requirements and its current workload, its components could be deployed in various forms in different environments to maximize the utility of the application deployment and the satisfaction of the user. Proactive adaptation is not only based on the current execution context and conditions but aims to forecast future resource needs and possible deployment configurations. This ensures that adaptation can be done effectively and seamlessly for the users of the application. The MORPHEMIC deployment platform will therefore be very beneficial for heterogeneous deployment in distributed environments combining various Cloud levels including Cloud data centres, edge Clouds, 5G base stations, and fog devices. Advanced forecasting methods, including the ES-Hybrid method recently winning the M4 forecasting competition, will be used to achieve the most accurate predictions. The outcome of the project will be implemented in the form of the complete solution, starting from modelling, through profiling, optimization, runtime reconfiguration and monitoring. Then the MORPHEMIC implementation will be integrated as a pre-processor for the existing MELODIC platform extending its deployment and adaptation capabilities beyond the multi-cloud and cross-cloud to the edge, 5G, and fog. This approach allows for a path to early demonstrations and commercial exploitation of the project results.

NebulOus will accomplish substantial research contributions in the realms of cloud and fog computing brokerage by introducing advanced methods and tools for enabling secure and optimal application provisioning and reconfiguration over the cloud computing continuum. NebulOus will develop a novel Meta Operating System and platform for enabling transient fog brokerage ecosystems that seamlessly exploit edge and fog nodes, in conjunction with multi-cloud resources, to cope with the requirements posed by low latency applications. The envisaged BRONCO solution includes the following main directions of work: i. Development of appropriate modelling methods and tools for describing the cloud computing continuum, application requirements, and data streams; these methods and tools will be used for assuring the QoS of the provisioned brokered services. ii. Efficient comparison of available offerings, using appropriate multi-criteria decision-making methods that are able to consider all dimensions of consumer requirements. iii. Intelligent applications, workflows and data streams management in the cloud computing continuum. iv. Addressing in a unified manner the security aspects emerging in of transient cloud computing continuums (e.g., access control, secure network overlay etc.). v. Conducting and monitoring smart contracts-based service level agreements.

Nowadays most of the ICT solutions developed by companies require the integration or collaboration with other ICT components, which are typically developed by third parties. Even though this kind of procedures are key in order to maintain productivity and competitiveness, the fragmentation of the supply chain can pose a high risk regarding security, as in most of the cases there is no way to verify if these other solutions have vulnerabilities or if they have been built taking into account the best security practices. In order to deal with these issues, it is important that companies make a change on their mindset, assuming an “untrusted by default” position. According to a recent study only 29% of IT business know that their ecosystem partners are compliant and resilient with regard to security. However, cybersecurity attacks have a high economic impact and it is not enough to rely only on trust. ICT components need to be able to provide verificable guarantees regarding their security and privacy properties. It is also imperative to detect more accurately vulnerabilities from ICT components and understand how they can propagate over the supply chain and impact on ICT ecosystems. However, it is well known that most of the vulnerabilities can remain undetected for years, so it is necessary to provide advanced tools for guaranteeing resilience and also better mitigation strategies, as cybersecurity incidents will happen. Finally, it is necessary to expand the horizons of the current risk assessment and auditing processes, taking into account a much wider threat landscape. BIECO is a holistic framework that will provide these mechanisms in order to help companies to understand and manage the cybersecurity risks and threats they are subject to when they become part of the ICT supply chain. The framework, composed by a set of tools and methodologies, will address the challenges related to vulnerability management, resilience, and auditing of complex systems.