OPENi - future of a consumer-centric cloud-based application platform

Today, over the Web there is a high availability of cloud-based services which, through their publicly available APIs, disrupt traditional industries and provide a vast number of features indicatively spanning: location-based services, photo sharing, video & music streaming, recommendations, data storage, data syncing, and social networking. This prolific array of services is fuelled by an insatiable market driven by modern European consumers constantly striving for innovative tools and services to support their personal and business needs. The OPENi project will define and deliver an open-source Web platform that will enable mobile application consumers to store data and metadata from their mobile application usage in their own space in the cloud -- the "Cloudlet". This information can be shared (by and under the control of the consumer) securely among their applications, services and across their connected devices. To realize this vision OPENi will provide the required components that will support both consumers in creating and managing their cloudlets but also Developers in creating applications that will be able to access and interact with them without disrupting service providers. In this paper, the OPENi cloudlet concept is outlined and the architectural blueprints are described leading to a discussion about the lessons learnt and next steps.