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School of Engineering

Distributed Systems

Distributed Systems

The Distributed Systems (DSY) research group of the InIT focuses on scalable and reliable implementation of Distributed Systems across various areas (Internet, Cloud, Robotics, Enterprises, etc) with a Cloud-Native/-First approach. We address questions such as:

The research group is engaged in international projects within the EU research framework and works closely with partners from the private sector on innovative products within Innosuisse funded or directly financed projects.

The knowledge gained from applied research and development is transferred to students of computer science courses in the following modules:

Research Topics

Cloud Computing

Contact:
Prof-Dr. Thomas M. Bohnert (Infrastructure/Virtualization/Performance)
Ing Christof Marti (Platform Engineering and Cloud Native Applications and Operation

This research area is dedicated to automated deployment, operation and usage of configurable, highly scalable and resilient IT resources (compute/network/storage) on a on-demand and pay-per-use basis.

Highly performant infrastructures, virtualization, and respective operational concerns is on research domain.

Beyond infrastructure virtualization, this includes platform services for automated application delivery, scalable back-end, and monitoring of services and applications.

See also our no longer maintained Blog of the Init Cloud Computing Lab (ICCLAB)

Cyber-Physical Systems and Applications

Contact: Dr. habil. Josef Spillner

Research in this area addresses the implementation and validation of complex services in cloud or post-cloud environments. In addition to the migration of existing services to the cloud, the main focus is on modern application architectures (Cloud Native Applications, Microservices, Serverless), the provisioning of tools for optimal implementation, the experimental validation of concepts and their monetization (Cloud Accounting and Billing).

This area evolved from the no longer maintained Service Prototyping Lab (SPLAB)

Distributed Systems for Robotics

Contact: Dr. Giovanni Toffetti

Our research group also addresses the application of distributed systems for the implementation of robotic applications. Primarily building on the ROS middleware, which we teach in the Robotic Applications Programming course, we address the development of autonomous robot applications catering for high-level robot functionality (e.g., mapping, navigation, perception, manipulation, deliberation, agents) with a focus on distributed systems (e.g., agentic AI, MCP, cloud/edge/fog robotics, multi-agents, multi-robot, simulation, fleet-management, integration with AI services, robot-specific networking and storage).

The usage of distributed systems allows to extend the capabilities of robots (computing power, context information, artificial intelligence, ...) as well as to manage and coordinate them. Programming frameworks like ROS and automation services enable developers to integrate robots into services without having in-depth knowledge at device level.

An updated sample of our work is available here.

Distributed Systems

Contact: Dr. Leonardo Militano

Our research area on general Distributed Systems investigates the design and deployment of hyper-distributed applications spanning the cloud-to-edge compute continuum. Building on modern distributed system technologies and frameworks, we address the development of applications that leverage heterogeneous computing resources—ranging from centralized cloud data centers to edge devices and micro-data centers—with a focus on orchestration, monitoring, deployment, and resource management.

We study methods for dynamic scaling, fault tolerance, service coordination, and efficient data placement, enabling applications to operate reliably and efficiently across highly distributed infrastructures. 

Unfortunately, no list of projects can be displayed here at the moment. Until the list is available again, the project search on the ZHAW homepage can be used.