Transparent Computing: A Promising Network Computing Paradigm

With the emergence of cloud computing, big data, and mobile networks, the computing paradigm and related technologies have experienced significant development over the past 10 years. Concomitantly, the prevalence of smartphones, wearable devices, and mobile applications has been constantly changing our daily lives. Terminals are evolving toward lightweight, intelligent, highly secure, and convenient devices. As an emerging computing paradigm, cloud computing focuses primarily on providing services through servers and networks but without addressing the inherent challenges and concerns of user terminals, such as energy efficiency, security, and cross-platform compatibility. Consequently, these challenges remain in the era of cloud computing and big data. In this article, the authors present a review to a promise computing paradigm: transparent computing. Similar to cloud computing, transparent computing stores software and user data at specific servers. More specifically, it extends the bus transmission in traditional computer architecture to the network. User interruptions at a terminal are redirected to a specific server through a network connection to request the corresponding instructions and data, which are subsequently executed at the terminal in a page-streaming pattern. By adopting this computing paradigm, user terminals are becoming more lightweight (nearly bare) with enhanced security (dumping after using), improved energy efficiency (no terminal storage), and cross-platform capability (low layer compatibility). This article presents a comprehensive survey and indicates future directions of transparent computing, from traditional terminals to mobile devices.