The annual ACM/IFIP Middleware conference is a major forum for the discussion of innovations and recent scientific advances of middleware systems with a focus on the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation of distributed systems, platforms and architectures for computing, storage, and communication. The conference will include a high quality single-track technical program, invited speakers, an industrial track, panel discussions involving academic and industry leaders, poster and demonstration presentations, a doctoral symposium, tutorials and workshops.

Topics

Original submissions of research papers on a diverse range of topics are sought, particularly those identifying new research directions. The topics of the interest for the conference include, but are not limited to:

    Cloud and data centers
    Virtualization, auto-scaling, provisioning, and scheduling
    Data-intensive computing (big data) and data analytics
    Stream Processing
    Machine learning
    Mobile and pervasive systems and services
    Internet-of-Things, smart cities
    Fog, Edge computing
    Cyber-physical and Real-time systems
    Energy and power-aware techniques
    Event-based, publish/subscribe, and peer-to-peer solutions
    Networking, network function virtualization, software-defined networking
    Multimedia Systems
    Fault tolerance and Consistency
    Blockchains
    Security and privacy
    Monitoring, resource management and analysis
    Middleware Design principles
    Programming abstractions and paradigms for middleware
    Reconfigurable, adaptable, and reflective approaches
    Reviews of middleware paradigms, e.g., object models, aspect orientation, etc.
    Methodologies and tools for design, implementation, verification, and evaluation

Original papers of three types are sought:

    Research Papers: These papers report original research on the above topics, and will be evaluated on significance of the problem, novelty of the solution, advancement beyond prior work, sufficient supporting evidence and clarity of the presentation.
    Experimentation and Deployment Papers: These papers describe complete systems, platforms, and/or comprehensive experimental evaluations of alternative designs and solutions to well-known problems. The emphasis during the evaluation of these papers will be less on the novelty and more on the demonstrated usefulness and potential impact of the contributions, the extensive experimentation involved, and the quality and weight of the lessons learned.
    Big Ideas Papers: These are papers that have the potential for opening up new research directions. For such papers, the potential to motivate new research is more important than full experimental evaluation, though some preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the approach or idea is important.