Mobile clouds provide new business opportunities for both mobile operators and cloud providers, as well for innovative SMEs, which are the main players in the development of mobile applications. Many obstacles to widespread take-up do however remain. These range from efficient management of data traffic to interoperability across platforms and devices; security and privacy issues; and a lack of skills and training needed to create a large community of developers.
The linking up of distributed cloud infrastructures and machine to machine (M2M), sensor networks and the Internet of Things (IoT) is also leading to interesting research and market opportunities.
In the context of the EU’s Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), a small call for proposals was launched in 2012 and two projects were selected for funding: MobiCloud and MO-BIZZ.
Expectations are high. The projects’ results have the potential to become best practices that trigger further deployments and research in this area under future Horizon 2020 calls.
MobiCloud
MobiCloud focuses on mobile applications for businesscritical scenarios, incorporating context-aware data based on the user’s situation. The team looked in particular at industries where collaborative mobile applications can support more efficient organisational processes – for example, by optimising the dispatch of workers in the field based on real-time information.
The project is developing four showcase examples addressing different industrial applications (city transit, rail operations, interim staff management and construction) in which endusers equipped with smartphones or tablets can access a portfolio of services stored in the cloud. MobiCloud provides a composite screen (mobile mash-up) that aggregates data from various corporate IT systems. Depending on context (location, role, skill set, available colleagues, etc.), the application displays different services that react in real-time to changes (work orders, fault reports, alerts).
The MobiCloud consortium has already released a new software development toolkit (SDK) that enables developers to create cross-platform and context-aware mobile workforce applications in the cloud.
MO-BIZZ
MO-BIZZ is seeking to step up cloud computing support for mobile business applications. Their use cases focus on sectors with a need for real-time business processes and intelligence: construction, energy, retail and transport. The problem today is the lack of a simple technology framework that allows businesses to rapidly develop and make services available to customers using cloud-based mobile services.
MO-BIZZ is trialling this new mobile, cloud-based service paradigm based on the innovative re-use of technology already available to the partners, and it is developing a business model and rapid service configuration capability.
The MO-BIZZ vision is to launch a European cloud platform for business apps, to build a strategic global approach to the mobile cloud, and to forge efficient cooperation that creates a vibrant community of developers.
The project involves two main communities of users:
- App developers and IT providers that want to deploy their business apps and access mobile network assets with minimal effort, adding value to the services they provide to their customers;
- Companies from key industries (especially SMEs) interested in understanding how to make the most of mobile cloud applications as productivity boosters and wishing to adopt mobility as a way to enhance competitiveness.
(Article from net-cloud future magazine (2013) - for complete magazine click here)