The demand for larger and more interconnected software systems is constantly increasing, but the ability of developers to satisfy it is not evolving accordingly. The most limiting factor is software validation, which typically requires very costly and complex testing processes. This project aims at significantly improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process and, with it, the overall quality of large software systems. For this, we propose to apply the “divide-and-conquer” principle, which is commonly used for architecting complex software, to testing by developing a novel test orchestration theory and toolbox enabling the creation of complex test suites as the composition of simple testing units. This test orchestration mechanism is complemented with a number of tools that include: (1) Capabilities for the instrumentation of the Software under Test enabling to reproduce real-world operational conditions thanks to features such as Packet Loss as a Service, Network Latency as a Service, Failure as a Service, etc. (2) Reusable testing services solving common testing problems including Browser Automation as a Service, Sensor Emulator as a Service, Monitoring as a Service, Security Check as a Service, Log Ingestion and Analysis as a Service, Cost Modeling as a Service, etc. (3) Cognitive computing and machine learning mechanisms suitable for ingesting large amounts of knowledge (e.g. specifications, logs, software engineering documents, etc.) and capable of using it for generating testing recommendations and answering natural language questions about the testing process. The ElasTest platform thus created shall be released basing on a flexible Free Open Source Software and a community of users, stakeholders and contributors shall be grown around it with the objective of transforming ElasTest into a worldwide reference in the area of large software systems testing and of guaranteeing the long term sustainability of the project generated results.

Digital technologies underpin innovation and competitiveness across a broad range of market sectors. A key technology to boost such innovation and competitiveness is represented by the full and wide adoption of Open Service Platforms. In fact, they will allow increased competition and market penetration because they should be built on top of royalty-free open specifications, adopting open source reference implementations, and s such allowed to be offered by multiple vendors. The Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development (FP7) has developed the FIWARE platform which has demonstrated its potential of becoming a service platform of choice, with proven potential for usage by SMEs and startups. This rises to the extent that four main ICT players in Europe with global ambition have put FIWARE in their strategy for market development. More than that, those four players announced the creation of an open to all legal entity, the FIWARE Foundation, to have more stakeholders driving the evolution of FIWARE. Well in this scope, the aim of the FI-NEXT project is to put in place all the measures necessary in order to make FIWARE materializing such a potential. This will achieved pursuing the following objectives: a) bringing FIWARE from an European Open Source project to a global Open Source Community, b) ensuring FIWARE meets the highest quality standards and best technical support, c) positioning FIWARE as the de facto standard for the development of smart applications, and d) ensuring FIWARE Lab to be a self-sustainable environment.

The mobile phone service is the most popular IT service worldwide with more than 5 billion users. However, many analysts agree that a novel wave of technologies combining WebRTC with Cloud Computing, is going to disrupt it bringing a new media communications era. This opens a multi billion business opportunity and developers are the key to it: currently, more than 10 million developers worldwide are avid of new platforms enabling innovative media services. In this project we present SCALABLA: a technological platform that makes possible for developers to create professional WebRTC multimedia services adapted to vertical domains (e.g. e-health, e-learning, social TV, etc.) For attracting developers, SCALABLA shall be accessible with lower costs and shall offer three differential features: social scalability, which enables new social communication topologies currently not available; personalization, including the ability of enriching and customizing video streams accordingly to users’ needs and context; and DevOps, which means that the platform simplifies most of the tedious tasks developers need to execute. SCALABLA is built on top of FIWARE technologies, which have been demonstrated in operational environments, and which guarantees its technical feasibility. In addition, a preliminary market analysis shows huge interests in SCALABLA concepts from different relevant market stakeholders and developers as well as the ability of the platform to open a whole new “blue ocean” market filling the gap between real-time media and live media broadcasting. This project will result in an elaborated business plan providing a detailed market analysis, a commercialization plan, a financial plan and a feasibility assessment analyzing risks, IPR protection mechanisms and regulatory constraints. This plan shall provide evidence on the ability of the company to transform SCALABLA into a successful, sustainable and scalable global business.