Dynamic intelligence towards merging cloud and communication services

The ever-growing next generation Cloud and Communication Services (CCS) provide dynamic intelligence and play an increasingly critical role in all aspects of our lives. Following ubiquitous computing, sensors, e-tags, networking, big data, wireless communications and cloud services is a road towards a smart world created on both cyberspaces and real spaces. “Cloud” is a common metaphor for an Internet accessible infrastructure (e.g. data storage and computing hardware), which is hidden from users. Cloud computing makes data truly mobile and a user can simply access a chosen cloud with any Internet accessible device. In Cloud Computing, IT-related capabilities are provided as services, accessible without requiring detailed knowledge of the underlying technology. Thus, many mature technologies are used as components in Cloud computing, but still there are many unresolved and open problems. Cloud service is a new cross-discipline that covers the science and technology needed to bridge the gap between business services and IT/telecommunication services. The underneath breaking technology suite includes web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, business consulting methodology and utilities, business process modeling, transformation and integration. The goal of cloud and services computing is to develop new computing technology and thereby enable more advanced IT/ telecommunication services to support business services more efficiently and effectively. Today’s IT paradigm, computation and communication are embedded in the environment such that all objects can be connected and always online. This will greatly facilitate intelligent monitoring and control of different objects. On the other hand, the vision of all objects connected offers not only the potential of enable emergent applications that dynamically adapts to the environments and the contexts of their usage, but also poses a significant challenge to the collection, storage and processing of enormous amounts of data. By taking advantage of virtualized resources, cloud computing services presents an attractive means to address the challenges while realizing the potential of cloud and communication services. The CCS paradigm can be generalized to include mobile devices, which not only incorporate sophisticated methods for users to interact with the online world through numerous applications in their devices, but also are endowed with multiple sensors that enable them to contribute data as nodes in the CCS. In this context, mobile cloud services that enable widespread data collection through mobile devices, and collaborative use of mobile devices to enhance existing and realize new applications are very much of interest. It is anticipated that such mobile cloud services will enrich social networking applications, encourage the widespread adoption of crowdsourcing and crowd sensing, and facilitate ubiquitous access to multimedia entertainment contents. Integration of CCS and mobile services on the cloud is expected to efficiently enable e-health, intelligent transportation, and smart power grids, which form the basis of the future smart society. Cloud and communication services are paving the way towards a smart world in which computational intelligence is distributed throughout the physical environment to provide C.<H. Hsu (*) Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan e-mail: robertchh@gmail.com