Seminar with Marcelo Pasin “Secure and Seamless Cloud–Edge Continuum: Leveraging WebAssembly and Trusted Execution Environments”
Date & Time: October 29, 11h00
Where: Auditorium 9 at INESC-ID, Rua Alves Redol 9
Abstract: The computing continuum is currently dominated by proprietary silos and incompatible technologies, built around dedicated devices and run-time stacks. In this presentation, we motivate the need for an interoperable and seamless environment running atop multiple heterogeneous hardware devices and software environments, yet achieving good performance and a high level of security. The latter is a critical requirement for code and data processed off-premises. We argue that the technology provided by WebAssembly running on modern virtual machines and shielded within trusted execution environments, combined with a core set of services and support libraries, allows us to meet our both goals. We implemented several protypes using these technologies and deployed them on the cloud-edge continuum. The presentation then also presents several evaluations we did using these prototypes, showing the (low) performance costs of our implementations.
Bio: Marcelo Pasin is an associate professor at the Engineering School Arc of the HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland. His research interests are centred around performance and dependability of system-level software environments for distributed applications. His latest publications hint at using trusted execution environments and WebAssembly as a homogeneous support for secure, execution of applications in the cloud-edge continuum.
Marcelo Pasin holds diplomas of doctor in computer science from the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (France, 1999), master’s in computer science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1994) and electrical engineering from the Federal University of Santa Maria (Brazil, 1988). After graduating, he worked two years for the computer industry in Brazil. Following that, he worked as faculty at the UFSM Federal University of Santa Maria (Brazil, 1991-2007), INRIA (ENS Lyon, France, 2007-8), the University of Lisbon (Portugal, 2008-12), and the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland, 2012-2023). During a sabbatical in 2006, he visited the University of Pisa (Italy, 2006). He is member of IEEE, ACM and SBC (Brazil).
About INESC-ID
INESC-ID, “Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores: Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa” is a Research and Development and Innovation Organization (R&D+i) in the fields of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. INESC-ID mission is to produce added value to people and society, supporting the response of public policies to scientific, health, environmental, cultural, social, economic and political challenges. INESC-ID promotes cooperation between academia and industry by addressing research on daily life issues, such as healthcare, space, mobility, agri-food, industry 4.0, and smart grids. This high level of knowledge transfer is achieved through both competitive research projects and direct contracted research. Public and private entities have therefore access to a pool of knowledge, resources and services provided through the unique competencies available at the institution.
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