SPORANGIUM: Exploiting a virtualization layer to support the concept of sporadic cloud computing with users on the move

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. In this paper we deploy Sporadic Ad-hoc Networks (SANs) over the devices of a group of always-on users who happen to be in a place. The goal is to develop tailor-made services that exploit the particular context of the users, the possible similarities among their preferences and the technological capabilities of their terminals to establish ad-hoc communications. In order to overcome the intrinsic limitations of mobile devices, we explore the new concept of Sporadic Cloud Computing (SCC) that is aimed at providing each terminal with extra resources by exploiting the capabilities of the rest of devices connected to each SAN. To abstract the complexity stemmed from the mobility scenarios, SCC works with a virtualization layer that deals with a few static virtual nodes instead of a higher number of mobile real nodes. This allows to turn our SANs into reliable and stable communication environments to promote interactions among potentially like-minded strangers.