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WETICE '09 International Workshop on Integrating the Edge with the Enterprise

by Rajiv Ramnath — last modified 2009-11-11 16:58

International Workshop on Integrating the Edge with the Enterprise - Event Description and Call for Papers

This unique workshop is part of WETICE 2009 - the 18th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises, June 29 - July 1, 2009, Groningen, The Netherlands (http://tbk15.fwn.rug.nl/wetice2009/)

The ability to embed sensing and intelligence into devices and at the same time provide ubiquitous access to these devices through wireless communication has resulted in computing becoming increasingly pervasive. These pervasive computing networks are often called as the Edge.

Enterprise systems can leverage the Edge in many ways. The application of RFID tags and other smart sensors in tracking inventory is well known. Edge systems can detect the state of deployed products, monitor and control the usage of resources, detect new conditions in the environment that are critical to improved service, as well as deliver new services. And the Edge is not limited to sensor networks. If the Edge is thought of as the boundary where the Enterprise meets its environment, web portals that enable interactivity with external actors are also part of the Edge.

By providing enhanced visibility Edge systems can provide enterprises with clues to long-term planning. Further, by providing convenient and ubiquitous access to information, the Edge can enable collaborative applications within and among enterprises. Edge systems also provide opportunities for new business models such as context and location sensitive advertising to travelling and transient customers and on-the-go transactions using flexible (and, in particular, mobile) payment systems.

Apart from various challenges in designing the Edge, such as resource constrained devices, mobility and loss-prone wireless channels, there are also many challenges in integrating the Edge with the Enterprise, such as:

Adapting existing enterprise resource planning systems to integrate with Edge systems.
Providing users of enterprise systems with interfaces for configuring the Edge in a business relevant manner to look for and react to business-critical events, and yet keep them abstracted away from the details of the Edge implementation.
Ensuring that the autonomous agents in the Edge act quickly with accurate information.
Using the Edge for continuous improvement of Enterprise business capability, enabling sense-and-respond innovations (i.e. those without the overhead of long-planning and execution cycles), and enterprise resilience.
Seamlessly integrating existing enterprise software with pervasive middleware services. (As an example consider a person or object location / tracking service that is integrated with enterprise software such as Lotus Sametime.)
Designing enterprise and system architectures with autonomous agents that strike the balance between local capabilities, communicating to enterprise systems, and acting on global directives.
Efficiently storing and mining the vast amount of Edge data to facilitate planning in real-time.
Monitoring complex architectures to reason about the health of the enterprise.
Using information in the Enterprise to reason about the health of the Edge – including the health of people wearing pervasive computing devices.
Ensuring data security in an Edge integrated Enterprise.
Standardizing the Edge in order to permit interoperability and collaboration among multiple enterprises.
Reasoning about variations in the environment to leverage dynamic assembly for needed service capability.

The focus of the workshop is on pervasive Edge systems that enable long term strategic and operational planning as well as those that enable real time management. The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in industry and academia and jointly address challenges involved in applying pervasive computing with enterprise systems. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Innovative applications, application design, case studies, prototypes, real-world-systems
Reference architectures
Integration of enterprise software with Edge systems
Design of middleware services and infrastructure to support collaborative applications
Applying Edge systems for industrial control and automation
Algorithms for data fusion and mining
Standardization for interoperability and collaborative applications
Modeling methodologies for analysis and design of Edge-to-Enterprise systems to enable innovation, streamlined operations and enterprise resilience.
New business models enabled by the integration of the Edge and the Enterprise

Important Dates

Deadline for paper submission: Feb 20, 2009

Decision to paper authors: March 13, 2009

Final version of accepted papers due to IEEE: April 10, 2009

Submission Instructions

Papers should contain original contributions not published or submitted elsewhere, and with references to related work. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their papers at the workshop. Papers up to six pages (including figures, tables and references) can be submitted. Papers should follow the IEEE format, which is single-spaced, two columns, 10 pt font. Papers should include a title, the name and affiliation of each author, an abstract of up to 150 words and no more than eight keywords. Please submit papers, in PDF or PS format, to either of the Co-Chairs or the Program Committee. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by a minimum of three program committee members. The accepted papers and the summary report produced by each group will be published in the post-conference proceedings (to be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press). If you have further questions or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact the workshop organizers.

Co-Chairs

Dr. Rajiv Ramnath, Director of Practice,

Collaborative for Enterprise transformation and innovation, The Ohio State University

Email: ramnath (at) cse.ohio-state.edu

Dr. Jay Ramanathan, Director of Research,

Collaborative for Enterprise transformation and innovation, The Ohio State University

Email: jayram (at) cse.ohio-state.edu

Dr. Vinod Kulathumani, Assistant Professor,

Computer Science and electrical Engineering, West Virginia University

Email: vinod.kulathumani (at) mail.wvu.edu

Program committee

Dr. Anand Desai, Professor, John Glenn School for Public Affairs, The Ohio State University