Blueprinting the Cloud-Fog-Edge Continuum: A Model-Driven TOSCA Design Environment

The rapid evolution of Edge Processing Systems (EPSs) and the Computing Continuum (CC) has led to the widespread use of heterogeneous computing platforms. In particular, Multi-Processor System on Chip (MPSoC)-based devices that combine general-purpose processors and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) fabric have emerged as a powerful solution for handling both software-defined and computationally-intensive workloads. This paper presents a novel design flow that integrates existing tools and supports commercially available FPGA-based MPSoCs to enable the orchestration of acceleration-oriented applications at the edge within a CC environment. The proposed design flow leverages modular components to build custom Linux distributions, including necessary drivers and packages for containerized workload management. By replacing vendor-specific solutions (i.e., AMD’s Ubuntu and PetaLinux) with the design of a lightweight, purpose-built Linux distribution, our approach provides a unified and flexible cloud-to-edge development environment. Experimental results show that such a customized distribution not only maintains timing and power/energy consumption comparable to vendor-optimized setups, but can also reduce CPU and RAM usage, SD memory footprint, and container size.