Towards Halos Networks Ubiquitous Networking and Computing at the Edge Antonio Manzalini Strategy, Future Centre, Innovative Architectures Telecom Italia, Italy Télécom SudParis, Institut Mines-Télécom Evry, France Noel Crespi Télécom SudParis, Institut Mines-Télécom Evry, France Vânia Gonçalves IBBT-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium Roberto Minerva Strategy, Future Centre, Innovative Architectures Telecom Italia, Italy Télécom SudParis, Institut Mines-Télécom Evry, France Abstract— This paper presents Halos Networks as an architectural paradigm for developing ubiquitous networking and computing services at the edge of the networks A Halos Network is like a wireless network spontaneously emerging through the interactions of distributed resources embedding wireless communication capabilities. Halos Networks are capable of delivering services and data virally through multiple devices, machines and objects interconnected with each other. This paper discusses business roles for Stakeholders in Halos Networks scenarios, specifically concluding with some remarks about the Operators’ role. Keywords-component; Ubiquitous Networks and Services; Self- Management; Autonomic; Internet of Things. I. INTRODUCTION Networks are becoming more and more pervasive and dynamic, capable of interconnecting large numbers of nodes, IT resources, machines and Consumers’ electronics devices embedding communication capabilities. In the future, anything will be a network node. Actually, with the deployment of Internet of (and with) Things and Machine-to-Machine, current estimates [1] show that in a few years there will be many billions of electronic devices connected with each other and to the Internet. In this scenario, it is realistic to imagine services and data virally delivered through multiple devices, machines and objects interconnected by a dynamic network of networks. Reasonably, this evolution will occur first at the edges of the networks, where we will see the proliferation of Sensor Networks, Personal Area Networks (PAN), Vehicular Area Networks (VAN), and in general, networks of networks and all types of machines and embedded systems. This evolution raises technical challenges and important socio-economic issues for stakeholders to consider: from simplifying such emerging complexity when managing future networks to identifying new business opportunities and models. This paper presents Halos Networks as an architectural paradigm for developing ubiquitous networking and computing services at the edge of the networks A Halos Network is like a wireless network spontaneously emerging through the interactions of distributed resources embedding wireless communication capabilities. For example, a halo could be the set of sensors and actuators plus a controller, a tiny PC and a smartphone creating a User’s Wireless Personal Area Network (WPANs). A WPAN is a network centered around an individual person's workspace or context. The outline of the paper is the following. In Section II an example of Halos Networks scenario is presented. Section III makes a brief summary of the state-of-the-art of autonomic networking and computing which are considered the most relevant avenues of research impacting Halos Networks development. Section IV and V focuses, respectively, on the Halos Network theoretical models, architecture and prototyping developments. Section VI discusses a number of business models for Stakeholders, concluding with a brief description of the Operators’ role in Halos Networks scenarios. Finally, Section VII gives conclusions and discusses future work. II. HALOS NETWORKS’ SCENARIO Consider a scenario of “ultra-dense networks” at the edge where a huge number of communicating entities, with storage and processing capabilities, are interacting locally with each other. Imagine, each person surrounded by a sort of halo (e.g. a sort of WPAN), within which devices, sensors, actuators, controllers, tiny PCs, etc. are interconnected with each other and can be autonomically “plugged and played” (with no need for human configuration). Each device within the halo is able to communicate with its peers. The introduction of autonomic and learning capabilities is dramatically simplifying required configurations by the Users. When people’s halos come into close proximity (within a few meters), the resources of the halos can flock together and spontaneously create a network of network, which is what we call Halos Networks. Imagine that communication, storage and processing resources are clustered in “halos” not only centered around