Guest Editorial: In-Network Computing: Emerging Trends for the Edge-Cloud Continuum

Recent advances in virtualization technologies (e.g., unikernels, containers, and virtual machines), the move to data driven approaches and softwarized networking technologies (e.g., SDN, NFV, and data plane programming) have invigorated a new focus on combining computation and communication in distributed systems. At the same time, the proliferation of edge computing, a complementary and at times alternative solution to centralized cloud computing, has resulted in an edge-cloud continuum of applications and services. Edge computing offers more proximate resources closer to where the service is needed and supports emerging applications (e.g., self-driving vehicles, autonomous systems, and VR/AR) with stringent requirements of fast response, low delay, high bandwidth, trust-sensitivity, and/or continued operation, despite intermittent or incomplete connectivity. These trends have converged into the concept of Computing in the Network (COIN), the integration of in-network computation and network processing in a common framework. COIN naturally fits within the edge-cloud continuum, where expanded resource distribution and tightly integrated computing-networking capabilities are provisioned from the edge to the cloud infrastructure including at points in between.