Available Theses

Title	Student(s)	Supervisor	Description
Tooling for Novel Cloud-Edge-IoT Programming Model	1	Marlon Etheredge	details
Distributed Event Queue	1	Marlon Etheredge	details
Generation of Realistic Use Cases, Including Evaluation and Testing	1	Marlon Etheredge	details
Novel Programming Model and Runtime System for Edge/Cloud Infrastructures	1	Thomas Fahringer	details
Distributing High-Impact Scientific Workflows with Apollo	1	Juan Aznar	details
Event-based Invocation of Workflow Applications on the Edge	1	Juan Aznar	details
Detecting critical events on smart buildings using edge-cloud resources	1	Juan Aznar	details
Python Frontend for Serverless Workflows	1	Juan Aznar	details
Apollo-System Erweiterung und Automation	1	Thomas Fahringer	details
Exploring the impact of External Thread Pinning on Commercial Game Performance	1	Peter Thoman	details

Title	Tooling for Novel Cloud-Edge-IoT Programming Model
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Marlon Etheredge
Description	We research and develop a novel Cloud-Edge-IoT programming model for high-performance, fault-tolerant, and dynamic cloud applications. As an extension to the system, we are currently interested in accepting a bachelor student working on a project to extend the project with tooling that simplifies the development of cloud applications using our programming model. For this project, it is required to implement the tooling and show the correct functioning of the developed tooling.
Tasks	The development of tooling for a novel distributed programming model Live linting and syntax highlighting in an IDE, supporting our programming language Live monitoring of a (possibly extensive) distributed cloud system Extension of our parser to aid a developer in understanding programming errors
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing Software quality
Practical skills	Excellent programming abilities in Python as well as Java Possible required technologies to work with are Visual Studio Code (specifically extensions and language support), Python (PyVis could be a framework of interest), and OpenTelemetry.
Additional information	As the tooling will be part of a system intended to offer developers the ability to work with our programming model, software and code quality are essential aspects of this work. For this reason, we are looking for students with excellent programming abilities.

Title	Distributed Event Queue
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Marlon Etheredge
Description	Event queues are standard central components of any distributed system and are commonly implemented by one main or multiple brokers. Instead of this typical design, we want to explore the possibility of fully distributing event queues. For this project, it is required to implement a distributed event queue, show the correct functioning of the implementation, and evaluate the implementation.
Tasks	Implementation of a distributed event queue Validation of the implementation Evaluation of the implementation
Theoretical skills	Distributed systems Network programming Familiarity with computer science topics such as consensus algorithms and network protocols will become important throughout this project.
Practical skills	Excellent programming abilities in Python as well as Java Experience with network programming
Additional information	As such an event queue could be implemented in the system that supports our programming model, software and code quality are essential aspects of this work. For this reason, we are looking for students with excellent programming abilities.

Title	Generation of Realistic Use Cases, Including Evaluation and Testing
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Marlon Etheredge
Description	We research and develop a novel Cloud-Edge-IoT programming model for high-performance, fault-tolerant, and dynamic cloud applications. As an extension to the system, we are currently interested in accepting a bachelor student working on a project to extend the project with tooling that simplifies the development of cloud applications. An essential aspect of our programming model is the study of realistic (real-world) use cases. Such use cases may include applications such as smart cities, smart buildings, surveillance, and AI analysis. The generation of realistic use cases will entail the following: The studying (identification) of such realistic use cases Modeling of applications uses our programming model to develop applications for these use cases Complete evaluation of the applications in a real-world environment Comparison to existing programming models The product of this project is required to be the development of several realistic use cases. For this project, it is required to study possible real-world use cases, develop applications for these use cases, implement required services, and perform a complete evaluation of any implemented use case.
Tasks	Studying novel and realistic real-world use cases Modeling of applications for use cases using our programming model Evaluating use cases in a real-world environment Evaluation, comparing to existing programming models
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing Modeling Familiarity with computer science topics such as the following will become important throughout this project: modeling and AI analysis (for instance, image analysis).
Practical skills	Excellent programming abilities in Python as well as Java In-depth knowledge of distributed systems and cloud computing
Additional information	As our system is intended to solve real-world problems, any applications developed must be of high quality. For this reason, we are looking for students with excellent programming abilities.

Title	Novel Programming Model and Runtime System for Edge/Cloud Infrastructures
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Thomas Fahringer
Description	Develop a novel programming model (language) which is based on a set of state machines and transitions among these state machines based on events. Develop a highly distributed and scaling runtime system that executes programs with this novel programming model. Test it with 2 – 3 applications that should be developed as part of this thesis. Testing will be done on a local edge laboratory with a public cloud.
Tasks	Specify a novel programming language based on state machines with YAML or JSON Convert programs written in the above language into a Java intermediate representation Develop a runtime system that can executed programs written in the above language targeting edge/cloud infrastructures Reuse existing event based environments and monitoring framework as part of the runtime system Study related work and compare against this new approach Test the overall framework with 2 – 3 applications that should be developed as part of this thesis Incorporate rigorous testing from the very beginning in the development process
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing, Serverless, Machine/Federated Learning
Practical skills	Java (expert programmer), git and GitHub, JSON or YAML, serverless computing, Container and Virtual Machine technologies
Additional information	You should have passed the lecture and PS on Verteilte Systeme in the computer science bachelor program or otherwise demonstrate that are familiar with the practical skills mentioned above. You should be an expert programmer in Java.The student will have the opportunity to work with a state-of-the-art Apollo Edge-Cloud infrastructure. The developed environments will be reused for international projects and published as open-source. Collaborative work in an international project is possible if the student is interested. In the best case this work can also be published and student can travel to conference and present his/her work.

Title	Distributing High-Impact Scientific Workflows with Apollo
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Juan Aznar
Description	In this thesis, you should execute two to three real scientific workflows (WF) using the FaaS paradigm through the Apollo runtime system [1] and do research with real biological and experimental input datasets. For instance, the 1000genome [2] WF enables identifying genome mutations according to numerous population features for the later study of associated diseases. Another example is Cycles (CW) [3], which is one of the most environmental-friendly workflows. Basically, CW simulates agricultural experiments that enable scientists to evaluate the behavior of crops under different environmental conditions, protecting nature from unnecessary and damaging tests and promoting sustainable agriculture while saving vast amounts of time and resources. [1] https://apollowf.github.io/learn.html [2] https://github.com/wfcommons/pegasus-instances/tree/master/1000genome [3] https://github.com/wfcommons/pegasus-instances/tree/master/cycles
Tasks	Port the tasks of different (two or three) scientific WFs onto an edge/cloud infrastructure and orchestrate them with Apollo in a distributed fashion. Process and prepare experimental datasets to be used as WF input. Study the performance (e.g., time, cost, memory and energy consumption) and scalability of the executed WF for different hardware settings (e.g., edge, cloud, both) and data input sizes. Optimize the performance of the WF execution and explain performance behavior.
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing, FaaS, Serverless
Practical skills	Java, Python (Biopython, Pandas, Numpy), git, GitHub
Additional information

Title	Event-based Invocation of Workflow Applications on the Edge
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Juan Aznar
Description	In this thesis you will execute realistic complex tasks and data processing as workflow applications [1] on an edge-cloud infrastructure. To this end, you should trigger the execution of workflows in Apollo [2] using event data in common format [3] (i.e., name, source, type, kind, correlation, dataOnly, and metadata fields), thus providing interoperability across services, platforms and systems. There is numerous event frameworks. In this thesis, you should systematically compare and then select based on the following requirements: (i) runs on IoT, edge and cloud, (ii) can be configured for arbitrary events, (iii) scales for large events, (iv) builds on cloud events standard [3], and (v) is open-source.[1] https://github.com/serverlessworkflow/ [2] https://apollowf.github.io/learn.html [3] https://github.com/cloudevents/spec
Tasks	Rigorously study different event frameworks or platforms. Create one or more workflows whose tasks will be orchestrated by Apollo in a distributed fashion. Optionally you can propose your own workflow application. Integrate Apollo with your selected event infrastructure Define a set of important events and invoke the above mentioned workflows Stress the system with different amount of events and analyze the resulting performance.
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing, Serverless, Docker
Practical skills	Java, Python, git, GitHub, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or any other IoT/Edge hardware
Additional information

Title	Detecting critical events on smart buildings using edge-cloud resources
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Juan Aznar
Description	The goal of this bachelor thesis is to develop fully operational edge devices used to recognize critical events on smart buildings (SB), such as fire, smoke, water leakages, inadequate social distance, unmasked people, among others. Edge devices should be implemented by using commercial and low cost devices (e.g., Raspberry Pi [1]), (thermal) cameras, and Open-Source Machine Learning (ML) libraries [2]. The smart building should react immediately and act in consequence when undesired events occur. To this end, edge devices will be orchestrated by the Apollo system [3] to exploit parallelism, scalability, and load balancing. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/ [2] https://opencv.org/ [3] https://apollowf.github.io/learn.html
Tasks	Use Raspberry Pi as an edge device and execute serverless functions. Detection and recognize different critical events using a camera and open-source ML libraries. Create one or more simple workflows (WF) whose tasks will be orchestrated by Apollo in a distributed fashion. Deploy the designed WF to the edge cloud infrastructure mentioned above (Raspberry Pis and (thermal) cameras). Study the performance and scalability of the proposed solution under different levels of stress on the SB (e.g., multiple fires, smoke and crowding at a time). Extensively test with multiple data sets on various hardware settings.
Theoretical skills	Cloud computing, Serverless, Machine Learning, Electronics
Practical skills	Python, git, GitHub
Additional information

Title	Python Frontend for Serverless Workflows
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Juan Aznar
Description	Apollo (https://apollowf.github.io/) is the DPS research orchestration and runtime system for Edge-Cloud infrastructures. We are using AFCL (https://apollowf.github.io/learn.html) to describe serverless workflows for distributed applications. As part of this thesis, you will have to create a Python version for AFCL thus application developers can create Python programs to build workflows instead of using AFCL directly. Furthermore, you have to create a transformation system that automatically converts the Python programs into AFCL which is input to APOLLO.
Tasks	Create a Python specification that fully represents the AFCL language constructs thus all AFCL programs can also be represented by this Python specification. Every AFCL program thus should have a Python representation. There are multiple solution paths to this problem, for instance, building a parser or a transformation system that converts the Python representation into AFCL. Other solutions may be possible as well. Your solution should be modular and easy to extend in case of any changes to AFCL. Convert at least 3 AFCL use cases into the Python representation.
Theoretical skills
Practical skills	Advanced Python programmer, git and GitHub, JSON or YAML
Additional information	It is not mandatory but of great help if you passed the lecture and PS on Verteilte Systeme in the computer science bachelor program. This Bachelor Thesis will be supervised by Juan Aznar (IFI/DPS). The student will have the opportunity to work with a state-of-the-art Apollo Edge-Cloud infrastructure. The developed Python frontend will be reused for international projects and published as open-source. Collaborative work in an international project is possible if the student is interested. In the best case this work can also be published and student can travel to conference and present his/her work.

Title	Apollo-System Erweiterung und Automation
Number of students	1
Language	Deutsch oder Englisch
Supervisors	Thomas Fahringer
Description	Das Apollo-System[1] wurde von der DPS Gruppe zur Ausführung von serverless Workflows entwickelt. Workflows werden dabei im AFCL Format dargestellt und portable gemacht. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es den AFCLEditor[2] (ein Tool zum Erstellen von AFCL Workflows) zu erweitern und für alle AFCL Konstrukte zu validieren. Eine Grafische Visualisierung durch den Editor soll das Erstellen der Workflows vereinfachen. Zudem sollen im Workflow definierte Funktionen automatisch auf verschiedenen Cloud Providern deployed werden (eine semi-automatische starting-base wird hierbei zur Verfügung gestellt, siehe [3]). Das Apollo-System überwacht die Ausführungen der Funktionen und des kompletten Workflows. Diese Monitoring Daten sollen visualisiert werden. [1] https://github.com/Apollo-Core [2] https://github.com/Apollo-AFCL/AFCLEditor [3] https://github.com/Apollo-Functions/FunctionTemplate
Tasks	AFCLEditor erweitern und testen Grafische Visualisierung des AFCLEditors Automatisches Deployment von Funktionen auf verschiedenen Cloud Providern Visualisierung von Monitoring Daten des Apollo-Systems
Theoretical skills	Cloud Computing, Serverless, AWS, IBM, Google, Azure, Alibaba
Practical skills	Java, JetBrains MPS, Terraform, Docker
Additional information

Title	Exploring the impact of External Thread Pinning on Commercial Game Performance
Number of students	1
Language	English
Supervisors	Peter Thoman
Description	The goal of this thesis is developing a tool for external thread pinning of processes on the Windows operating system. It should allow for various pinning configurations which take into account the number and type of threads spawned by the application, and largely automate the process. This tool should then be leveraged to explore and document the impact of various thread pinning configurations on the performance of commercial games, as they offer a broad and diverse set of parallelization and communication patterns.
Tasks	Planning of the external thread pinning tool design and approach — including studying related Windows APIs as required Development and initial testing of the tool Automated performance measurement across a broad set of games and analysis of the results Interpretation and categorization of the results, including developing a set of “best practices” if justified by the results
Theoretical skills	Parallel Computing
Practical skills	C/C++, Threading, Windows API (can be studied as part of the thesis if necessary)
Additional information	For development, ownership of some games is required.