Dr.-Ing. habil. Josef Spillner

Work at ZHAW

Position

Deputy Head Distributed Systems

Teaching

• Operating Systems and Infrastructure
• Serverless and Cloud-native Application Development

Professional development teaching

• CAS Machine Intelligence
• CAS Information Engineering

Network

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5312-5996

Projects

• Microcredentials-as-a-Service – Cloud Platform / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Migration towards Managed Microcredentials / Project leader / ongoing
• Labelling and Segmentation of Graphene Characterisation Images / Project leader / ongoing
• Towards Sustainable Software Architectures for Cyber-physical Systems of Systems / Project leader / ongoing
• Cloud Open Source Research Mobility Network / Project leader / ongoing
• Microcredentials-as-a-Service / Co-project leader / completed
• Containerised Microcredentials in Academic Practice / Project leader / completed
• Advanced Microcredentials Platform: Builder, Integration and Delivery / Project leader / completed
• WebAssembly application orchestration platform / Project leader / completed
• On-chain Microcredentials Architecture and Open Source Toolbox Prototype / Project leader / completed
• Second-Generation Alptrackers with Hub-and-Spoke Signalling and Herd Awareness / Project leader / completed
• Audit Logging, Robustness and Resilience in Large-Scale Cloud-Based IoT Event Processing / Project leader / completed
• Revolutionizing Skill Development: How AI Can Enhance Training for Decent Work and Climate Resilience / Project leader / completed
• Decentrally verified and stacked microcredentials on the Internet Computer / Project leader / completed
• Creating informal learning spaces using QR codes and beacons / Project leader / completed
• Serverless data analytics and data-centric consensus for sensed data in public transport / Project leader / completed
• Dark Energy: Accurate estimation and awareness of cloud-induced power consumption / Project leader / completed
• MA4K8s: Machine advice for GitOps-managed Kubernetes configuration optimisation / Project leader / completed
• Indoor Navigation for Personalised Shopping / Project leader / completed
• Runtime-Optimised Business Object Transformation / Project leader / completed
• Actionable Insights and Business Intelligence based on Applied Sciences Messaging Patterns / Project leader / completed
• RACCOON – Rapid Application-Centric Composition and Online Orchestration iNvestigation / Project leader / completed
• Digital Mobility/Logistics Hub / Project leader / completed
• GitOps for Kubernetes Platform / Project leader / completed
• ADDSA - Advanced Diagnostics Data and Service Architecture / Project leader / completed
• Fog-Cloud Continuum Framework for Near-Data Computing / Project leader / completed
• Marketing insights from open/public data / Project leader / completed
• Smart policy-driven scanning of Docker images / Project leader / completed
• Supporting the adoption of FAIR and reproducible digital scholarship with Renku / Project leader / completed
• Smart City Simulation Platform / Project leader / completed
• Application of stealth computing in highly information-sensitive cloud environments / Project leader / completed
• COMBuST / Co-project leader / completed
• MOSAIC – Monitored Platform for Container Based Applications / Project leader / completed
• Amysta SaaS / Project leader / completed
• Architectural Renovation of Kendox InfoShare / Project leader / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Bittencourt, L. F., Rodrigues-Filho, R., Spillner, J., De Turck, F., Santos, J., da Fonseca, N. L. S., Rana, O., Parashar, M., & Foster, I. (2025). The computing continuum : past, present, and future. Computer Science Review, 58(100782). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosrev.2025.100782
• Gkikopoulos, P., Kropf, P., Schiavoni, V., & Spillner, J. (2024). Reliable IoT analytics at scale. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 187(104840). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2024.104840
• Spillner, J., Gkikopoulos, P., Delgado, P., & Choirat, C. (2022). Towards reproducible software studies with MAO and Renku. SoftwareX, 17(100947). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2021.100947
• Gkikopoulos, P., Schiavoni, V., & Spillner, J. (2022). Decentralised data quality control in ground truth production for autonomic decisions. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 33(10), 2416–2427. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2022.3142967
• Taibi, D., Spillner, J., & Wawruch, K. (2021). Serverless computing : where are we now, and where are we heading? IEEE Software, 38(1), 25–31. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2020.3028708
• Patros, P., Spillner, J., Papadopoulos, A. V., Varghese, B., Rana, O., & Dustdar, S. (2021). Toward sustainable serverless computing. IEEE Internet Computing, 25(6), 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2021.3093105
• Leitner, P., Wittern, E., Spillner, J., & Hummer, W. (2019). A mixed-method empirical study of Function-as-a-Service software development in industrial practice. Journal of Systems and Software, 149, 340–359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2018.12.013
• Toffetti Carughi, G., Brunner, S., Blöchlinger, M., Spillner, J., & Bohnert, T. M. (2017). Self-managing cloud-native applications : design, implementation and experience. Future Generation Computer Systems, 72, 165–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2016.09.002

Books, peer-reviewed

• Spillner, J. (2023). Operating systems and infrastructure in data science (1. Auflage). vdf Hochschulverlag. https://doi.org/10.3218/4168-2
• Spillner, J. (2015). Untersuchungen zur Risikominimierungstechnik Stealth Computing für verteilte datenverarbeitende Software-Anwendungen mit nutzerkontrollierbar zusicherbaren Eigenschaften. Technische Universität Dresden. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-1139
• Spillner, J. (2010). Methodik und Referenzarchitektur zur inkrementellen Verbesserung der Metaqualität einer vertragsgebundenen, heterogenen und verteilten Dienstausführung [Doctoral dissertation, Technische Universität Dresden]. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-1138

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

Cvetkovski, O., Gkikopoulos, P., & Spillner, J. (2023). Digitalisation in shopping : an IoT and smart applications perspective. In M. Klymash, A. Luntovskyy, M. Beshley, I. Melnyk, & A. Schill (Eds.), Emerging Networking in the Digital Transformation Age (pp. 197–213). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24963-1_11

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Sakman, M. C., Spillner, J., & Schiavoni, V. (2025). Speeding up the development for the computing continuum with WebAssembly [Conference paper]. 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1109/prdc67299.2025.00012
• Santellán, A., Ojha, R., Sakman, M. C., Khatani, S. A., & Spillner, J. (2025). Demo: Cyber-physical immersive learning spaces with sustainable private cloud operation [Conference paper]. 81–82. https://doi.org/10.1109/ic2e65552.2025.00022
• Shamsizadeh, S., & Spillner, J. (2025). Sheep behavior recognition using sensor data [Conference poster]. 298–300. https://doi.org/10.1109/dcoss-iot65416.2025.00055
• Wahler, M., & Spillner, J. (2025, June 9). Sustainable bytes : embedding sustainability awareness in computer science education. 2025 11th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S). https://doi.org/10.1109/ict4s68164.2025.00026
• Cvetkovski, O., Field, C., Trinchi, D., Marti, C., & Spillner, J. (2023). ZVAX : a microservice reference architecture for nation-scale pandemic management [Conference paper]. In G. Dorai, M. Gabbrielli, G. Manzonetto, A. Osmani, M. Prandini, G. Zavattaro, & O. Zimmermann (Eds.), Joint Post-proceedings of the Third and Fourth International Conference on Microservices (Microservices 2020/2022) (Vol. 111, Issue 4). Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics. https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.Microservices.2020-2022.4
• Sakman, M. C., Gkikopoulos, P., Martella, F., Villari, M., & Spillner, J. (2023). Indoor navigation for personalised shopping : a real-tech feasibility study [Conference paper]. In S. Hammoudi, F. Wijnhoven, & M. van Sinderen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Smart Business Technologies (pp. 43–53). SciTePress. https://doi.org/10.5220/0012085100003552
• Spillner, J. (2023, June 27). Demo: SLASH: Serverless Apache Spark Hub. DEBS ’23: Proceedings of the 17th ACM International Conference on Distributed and Event-Based Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/3583678.3603277
• Gkikopoulos, P., Kropf, P., Schiavoni, V., & Spillner, J. (2022, November 22). AVOC : history-aware data fusion for reliable IoT analytics. Proceedings of the 23rd International Middleware Conference Industrial Track. https://doi.org/10.1145/3564695.3564772
• Hass, D., & Spillner, J. (2022). Workload deployment and configuration reconciliation at scale in kubernetes-based edge-cloud continuums [Conference paper]. 2022 21st International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (ISPDC), 121–128. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISPDC55340.2022.00026
• Spillner, J. (2022). Tabular data insights and synthesis with the AutoTable approach [Conference poster]. Proceedings 2022 9th Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS), 69–70. https://doi.org/10.1109/SDS54800.2022.00020
• Bucchiarone, A., Guidi, C., Lanese, I., Bencomo, N., & Spillner, J. (2022). A MAPE-K approach to autonomic microservices [Conference poster]. 2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Software Architecture Companion (ICSA-C), 100–103. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSA-C54293.2022.00025
• Spillner, J., Liu, M., & Zhan, P. (2022, March 8). Demo: Smart waste disposal with edge-cloud continuum architecture. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Internet of Things. https://doi.org/10.1145/3494322.3494357
• Spillner, J. (2022, February 7). Self-balancing architectures based on liquid functions across computing continuums. Proceedings of the 14th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing Companion. https://doi.org/10.1145/3492323.3495589
• Klingler, R., Trifunovic, N., & Spillner, J. (2021). Beyond @CloudFunction : powerful code annotations to capture serverless runtime patterns [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WoSC7) 2021, 23–28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3493651.3493669
• Spillner, J. (2021). FixMyStadtmelder : challenges and solutions in civic services for smart cities and regions [Conference paper]. In E. Mugellini & E. Carpanzano (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd FTAL Conference 2021 Sustainable Smart Cities and Regions. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-29523
• Gkikopoulos, P., Schiavoni, V., & Spillner, J. (2021). Analysis and improvement of heterogeneous hardware support in Docker images [Conference paper]. Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems, 125–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78198-9_9
• Hass, D., & Spillner, J. (2021). Interactive application deployment planning for heterogeneous computing continuums [Conference paper]. Advanced Information Networking and Applications, 551–560. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75078-7_55
• Spillner, J. (2021). Education support structure for teaching multimodal programming in the cyber-physical space [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, 225–232. https://doi.org/10.5220/0010446002250232
• Spillner, J. (2021). Examination cheat risk reduction through FIPEs [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, 579–586. https://doi.org/10.5220/0010479805790586
• Buzachis, A., Boruta, D., Villari, M., & Spillner, J. (2021). Modeling and emulation of an osmotic computing ecosystem using OsmoticToolkit [Conference paper]. 2021 Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3437378.3444366
• Spillner, J., Gkikopoulos, P., Buzachis, A., & Villari, M. (2020). Rule-based resource matchmaking for composite application deployments across IoT-fog-cloud continuums [Conference paper]. 2020 IEEE/ACM 13th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), 336–341. https://doi.org/10.1109/UCC48980.2020.00053
• Spillner, J. (2020). Resource management for cloud functions with memory tracing, profiling and autotuning [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the 2020 Sixth International Workshop on Serverless Computing, 13–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3429880.3430094
• Spillner, J. (2020). Hierarchical topic aggregation for geospatial applications through processing extensions in message brokers [Conference paper]. Middleware ’20 Demos and Posters, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1145/3429358.3429370
• Gkikopoulos, P., Mateos, C., Spillner, J., & Teyseyre, A. (2020). Given 2n eyeballs, all quality flaws are shallow [Conference paper]. Middleware ’20 Demos and Posters, 3–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3429358.3429371
• Spillner, J., & López, M. R. (2020). Transactional migration of inhomogeneous composite cloud applications [Conference paper]. Advances in Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing, 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63161-1_3
• Spillner, J. (2020). Comparison and model of compression techniques for smart cloud log file handling [Conference paper]. 2020 International Conference on Communications, Computing, Cybersecurity, and Informatics (CCCI), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCCI49893.2020.9256609
• Qasse, I. A., Spillner, J., Abu Talib, M., & Nasir, Q. (2020). A study on ĐApps characteristics [Conference paper]. 2020 IEEE International Conference on Decentralized Applications and Infrastructures (DAPPS), 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1109/DAPPS49028.2020.00010
• Serhiienko, O., Gkikopoulos, P., & Spillner, J. (2019). Extensible declarative management of cloud resources across providers [Conference paper]. 2019 19th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGRID), 678–683. https://doi.org/10.1109/CCGRID.2019.00087
• Bogado-Sarubbi, Y., Benitez-Davalos, W., Spillner, J., & Lopez-Pires, F. (2019). Towards sustainable ecosystems for cloud functions [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications, 18–24. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3270
• Al-Ameen, M., & Spillner, J. (2019). A systematic and open exploration of FaaS research [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications, 30–35. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3271
• Dorodko, S., & Spillner, J. (2019). Selective Java code transformation into AWS Lambda functions [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the European Symposium on Serverless Computing and Applications, 9–17. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3269
• Spillner, J. (2019). Serverless computing and cloud function-based applications [Conference paper]. UCC ’19 Companion, 177–178. https://doi.org/10.1145/3368235.3370269
• Spillner, J., Bogado, Y., Benítez, W., & López Pires, F. (2018). Co-transformation to cloud-native applications : development experiences and experimental evaluation. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3508
• Serhiienko, O., & Spillner, J. (2018). Systematic and recomputable comparison of multi-cloud management platforms [Conference paper]. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 107–114. https://doi.org/10.1109/CloudCom2018.2018.00032
• Spillner, J., Ramírez López, M., & Toffetti Carughi, G. (2017). Cloud-native databases : an application perspective [Conference paper]. In Z. Á. Mann & V. Stolz (Eds.), Advances in Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing... Autor: Zoltán Ádám Mann Advances in Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing : Workshops of ESOCC 2017, Oslo, Norway, September 27-29, 2017, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 102–116). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79090-9_7
• Spillner, J. (2017). Practical tooling for serverless computing. 10th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC ’17), Austin, USA, 5-8 December 2017. https://doi.org/10.1145/3147213.3149452
• Toffetti Carughi, G., Lötscher, T., Kenzhegulov, S., Spillner, J., & Bohnert, T. M. (2017). Cloud robotics : SLAM and autonomous exploration on PaaS [Conference paper]. UCC ’17 Companion Companion Proceedings of The10th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing, 65–70. https://doi.org/10.1145/3147234.3148100
• Spillner, J., Mateos, C., & Monge, D. A. (2017). FaaSter, better, cheaper : the prospect of serverless scientific computing and HPC [Conference paper]. In E. Mocskos & S. Nesmachnow (Eds.), High Performance Computing (pp. 154–168). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73353-1_11
• Spillner, J., Stefan, K., & Vumo, A. P. (2017). Analysis of Mozambican websites : how do they protect their users? [Conference paper]. 2017 Information Security for South Africa (ISSA 2017), 90–97. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSA.2017.8251780
• Ramírez López, M., & Spillner, J. (2017). Towards quantifiable boundaries for elastic horizontal scaling of microservices. 10th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing Companion (UCC 2017). https://doi.org/10.1145/3147234.3148111
• Spillner, J., Beck, M., Schill, A., & Bohnert, T. M. (2015). Stealth databases : ensuring user-controlled queries in untrusted cloud environments [Conference paper]. 2015 IEEE/ACM 8th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), Limassol, Cyprus, 7-10 December 2015, 261–270. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3775

Other publications

• Spillner, J., Balis, B., Donkervliet, J., Ferrier, N., Foster, I., Malawski, M., Patros, P., Rana, O., & Wamser, F. (2021). Serverless applications and requirement (C. Abad, I. Foster, N. Herbst, & A. Iosup, Eds.). Schloss-Dagstuhl - Leibniz Zentrum für Informatik. https://doi.org/10.4230/DagRep.11.4.34
• Gkikopoulos, P., Spillner, J., & Schiavoni, V. (2020). Monitoring data distribution and exploitation in a global-scale microservice artefact observatory. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-22695
• Spillner, J., & Sill, A. (2018). Reengineering cloud data centers. IEEE Cloud Computing, 5(6), 26–27. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCC.2018.064181117
• Al-Ameen, M., Dorodko, S., Harsh, P., Junker, S., Perez Belmonte, M., Panichella, S., Ramírez López, M., Serhiienko, O., & Spillner, J. (2018). Service Prototyping Lab Report - 2018 (Y3) (J. Spillner, Ed.). ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3945
• Harsh, P., Dorodko, S., Spillner, J., Ramirez Lopez, M., Perez Belmonte, M., Serhiienko, O., & Skoviera, M. (2017). Service Prototyping Lab Report - 2017 (Y2). ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3708
• Lötscher, T., Marti, C., Ramírez López, M., Spillner, J., & Toffetti Carughi, G. (2016). Service Prototyping Lab Report - 2016 (Y1). ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3709
• Brunner, S., Blöchlinger, M., Toffetti Carughi, G., Spillner, J., & Bohnert, T. M. (2015). Experimental evaluation of the cloud-native application design [Conference paper]. 2015 IEEE/ACM 8th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), 488–493. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-3782

Research data

Sakman, Mehmet Cihan; Spillner, Josef, 2025. Structured «CPS orchestration» literature dataset. Zenodo. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17697546

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