Advances in Computers, Volume 127 presents innovations in computer hardware, software, theory, design and applications, with this updated volume including new chapters on Edge AI, Edge Computing, Edge Analytics, Edge Data Analytics, Edge Native Applications, Edge Platforms, Edge Computing, IoT, Internet of Things, etc.

When digitized entities, connected devices and microservices interact purposefully, we end up with a massive amount of multi-structured streaming (real-time) data that is continuously generated by different sources at high speed. Streaming analytics allows the management, monitoring, and real-time analytics of live streaming data. The topic has grown in importance due to the emergence of online analytics and edge and IoT platforms. A real digital transformation is being achieved across industry verticals through meticulous data collection, cleansing and crunching in real time. Capturing and subjecting those value-adding events is considered to be the prime task for achieving trustworthy and timely insights. The authors articulate and accentuate the challenges widely associated with streaming data and analytics, describe data analytics algorithms and approaches, present edge and fog computing concepts and technologies and show how streaming analytics can be accomplished in edge device clouds. They also delineate several industry use cases across cloud system operations in transportation and cyber security and other business domains. The book will be of interest to ICTs industry and academic researchers, scientists and engineers as well as lecturers and advanced students in the fields of data science, cloud/fog/edge architecture, internet of things and artificial intelligence and related fields of applications. It will also be useful to cloud/edge/fog and IoT architects, analytics professionals, IT operations teams and site reliability engineers (SREs).

Blockchain is emerging as a powerful technology, which has attracted the wider attention of all businesses across the globe. In addition to financial businesses, IT companies and business organizations are keenly analyzing and adapting this technology for improving business processes. Security is the primary enterprise application. There are other crucial applications that include creating decentralized applications and smart contracts, which are being touted as the key differentiator of this pioneering technology. The power of any technology lies in its ecosystem. Product and tool vendors are building and releasing a variety of versatile and robust toolsets and platforms in order to speed up and simplify blockchain application development, deployment and management. There are other infrastructure-related advancements in order to streamline blockchain adoption. Cloud computing, big data analytics, machine and deep learning algorithm, and connected and embedded devices all are driving blockchain application development and deployment. Blockchain Technology and Applications illustrates how blockchain is being sustained through a host of platforms, programming languages, and enabling tools. It examines: Data confidential, integrity, and authentication Distributed consensus protocols and algorithms Blockchain systems design criteria and systems interoperability and scalability Integration with other technologies including cloud and big data It also details how blockchain is being blended with cloud computing, big data analytics and IoT across all industry verticals. The book gives readers insight into how this path-breaking technology can be a value addition in several business domains ranging from healthcare, financial services, government, supply chain and retail.

Microservices architecture (MSA) is increasingly popular with software architects and engineers as it accelerates software solution design, development, and deployment in a risk-free manner. Placing a software system into a production environment is elegantly simplified and sped up with the use of MSA development platforms, runtime environments, acceleration engines, design patterns, integrated frameworks, and related tools. The MSA ecosystem is expanding with third-party products that automate as many tasks as possible. MSA is being positioned as the enterprise-grade and agile-application design method. This book covers in-depth the features and facilities that make up the MSA ecosystem. Beginning with an overview of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that covers the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and Remote Method Invocation (RMI), the book explains the basic essentials of MSA and the continuous delivery of applications to customers. The book gives software developers insight into: Current and emerging communication models Key architectural elements of MSA-based applications Designing efficient APIs for microservices MSA middleware platforms such as REST, SOAP, Apache Thrift, and gRPC Microservice discovery and the API gateway Service orchestration and choreography for composing individual services to achieve a useful business process Database transactions in MSA-centric applications Design, composition, security, and deployment patterns MSA security Modernizing legacy applications The book concludes with a chapter on composing and building powerful microservices. With the exponential growth of IoT devices, microservices are being developed and deployed on resource-constrained but resource-intensive devices in order to provide people-centric applications. The book discusses the challenges of these applications. Finally, the book looks at the role of microservices in smart environments and upcoming trends including ubiquitous yet disappearing microservices.

Blockchain is emerging as a powerful technology, which has attracted the wider attention of all businesses across the globe. In addition to financial businesses, IT companies and business organizations are keenly analyzing and adapting this technology for improving business processes. Security is the primary enterprise application. There are other crucial applications that include creating decentralized applications and smart contracts, which are being touted as the key differentiator of this pioneering technology. The power of any technology lies in its ecosystem. Product and tool vendors are building and releasing a variety of versatile and robust toolsets and platforms in order to speed up and simplify blockchain application development, deployment and management. There are other infrastructure-related advancements in order to streamline blockchain adoption. Cloud computing, big data analytics, machine and deep learning algorithm, and connected and embedded devices all are driving blockchain application development and deployment. Blockchain Technology and Applications illustrates how blockchain is being sustained through a host of platforms, programming languages, and enabling tools. It examines: Data confidential, integrity, and authentication Distributed consensus protocols and algorithms Blockchain systems design criteria and systems interoperability and scalability Integration with other technologies including cloud and big data It also details how blockchain is being blended with cloud computing, big data analytics and IoT across all industry verticals. The book gives readers insight into how this path-breaking technology can be a value addition in several business domains ranging from healthcare, financial services, government, supply chain and retail.

Microservices architecture (MSA) is increasingly popular with software architects and engineers as it accelerates software solution design, development, and deployment in a risk-free manner. Placing a software system into a production environment is elegantly simplified and sped up with the use of MSA development platforms, runtime environments, acceleration engines, design patterns, integrated frameworks, and related tools. The MSA ecosystem is expanding with third-party products that automate as many tasks as possible. MSA is being positioned as the enterprise-grade and agile-application design method. This book covers in-depth the features and facilities that make up the MSA ecosystem. Beginning with an overview of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that covers the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and Remote Method Invocation (RMI), the book explains the basic essentials of MSA and the continuous delivery of applications to customers. The book gives software developers insight into: Current and emerging communication models Key architectural elements of MSA-based applications Designing efficient APIs for microservices MSA middleware platforms such as REST, SOAP, Apache Thrift, and gRPC Microservice discovery and the API gateway Service orchestration and choreography for composing individual services to achieve a useful business process Database transactions in MSA-centric applications Design, composition, security, and deployment patterns MSA security Modernizing legacy applications The book concludes with a chapter on composing and building powerful microservices. With the exponential growth of IoT devices, microservices are being developed and deployed on resource-constrained but resource-intensive devices in order to provide people-centric applications. The book discusses the challenges of these applications. Finally, the book looks at the role of microservices in smart environments and upcoming trends including ubiquitous yet disappearing microservices.