VOICE: Value-of-Information for Compute Continuum Ecosystems

The increasing ubiquity of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices has led to a massive flow of data, often processed in distant and costly Cloud facilities. Emerging methodologies, such as Fog and Edge Computing, pursue to process data closer to its origin, thereby reducing the need for extensive use of Cloud solutions. The {"}Compute Continuum{"} (CC), which encompasses these paradigms, rises as an opportunity for an efficient deployment and adoption of innovative services ranging from eHealth to virtual reality. However, the decentralized nature of CC presents challenges, especially for orchestration tools conventionally designed for centralized scenarios. Tackling these challenges, we introduce VOICE, a cutting-edge platform designed for service management in CC ecosystems. Thanks to a Value of Information (VoI)-based technique that emphasizes the significance of data filtering, VOICE supports dynamic service components allocation throughout the continuum. To evaluate the choice of VoI as enabling-technology for VOICE, we leverage Computational Intelligence (CI) approaches and compare it with more popular strategies (e.g. maximization of Processing Ratio). Final results show how VoI can be a valuable proposal to optimize the usage of resource scarcity that characterizes CC environments.