Open Call 2: NebulOuS

Objectives

• The objective of the NebulOuS Open Call #2 is the validation of basic components of the NebulOuS architecture through new use cases in different domains than those covered already by the project and where an IoT to Edge to Cloud infrastructure is needed.

Challenges

• To be eligible, the proposed use cases must demonstrate that NebulOuS platform can cope with at least one of the challenges below:
  • Challenge 1 — Workflow application
  • Challenge 2 — IoT application
  • Challenge 3 — Serverless application
  • Challenge 4 — Open challenge

Funding Information

• Equity-free funding of up to €150,000 per project.

What do they offer?

• Access to specialized and qualified resources
• Direct support and guidance from a pool of mentors
• A designated mentor during the implementation stage

 Eligibility Criteria

• Applicant Eligibility
  • NebulOuS will fund third-party projects that may be from:
    • Single entity – Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working on the IoT, Edge, Cloud or other related technologies.
    • Consortium of maximum of 2 entities – Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working on the IoT, Edge, Cloud or other related technologies.
• SME Eligibility Conditions
  • These entities are eligible under the following conditions:
    • Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered eligible ONLY if complying with the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC and the SME user guide. In summary, the criteria which define an SME are:
      • The headcount in the Annual Work Unit (AWU) is less than 250
      • Annual turnover less or equal to €50 million OR annual balance sheet total less or equal to €43 million.
    • Start-ups that do not have yet annual turnover or balance sheets are also considered eligible given that they fulfil the criteria (a) and (b) at submission time.
• Additional Eligibility Conditions
  • In addition, the following conditions apply:
    • The applying SMEs should not:
      • Have convictions for fraudulent behaviour, other financial irregularities, or unethical or illegal business practices.
      • Have been declared bankrupt or have initiated bankruptcy procedures.
      • Be under liquidation or an enterprise under difficulty accordingly to the Commission Regulation No 651/2014, art. 2.18.
      • Be excluded from the possibility of obtaining EU funding under the provisions of both national and EU law, or by a decision of both national or EU authority
    • No double funding: proposals must ensure that there is no risk of double funding. The fundamental principle underpinning the rules for public expenditure in the EU states that no costs for the same activity can be funded twice from the EU budget, as defined in Article 111 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation.
    • VAT registration: all entities of the consortia must be registered with a verifiable VAT (which will be requested as part of the individual Declaration of Honour). Unincorporated start-ups are not eligible, even if the Coordinating entity on a given application is registered.
• Applicant Technical Requirements
  • Applicants must meet the following technical eligibility requirements to ensure their solutions are sufficiently mature for validation and integration within the NebulOuS Meta-Operating System:
    • Applicant should have an existing application that has already been tested in a relevant environment that closely resembles real-world operational conditions. Applicant must be able to modify the source code of the application to adapt it to NebulOuS requirements.
      • Provide evidence (screenshots, reports, news pieces, code repository, etc…) that the application exists and has been tested in a relevant environment.
    • The application should be containerized and deployed using technologies like Dockercompose, Kubernetes, K3s, Kubevela, etc.
      • Provide the definition of your application in Docker-compose, Kubernetes, K3s, Kubevela, etc.
    • The application must have at least one component that can run on edge devices.
      • Provide a list of the components that can be deployed on edge.
    • Applicant should provide edge devices to deploy some of the application components. The edge devices should be able to run Ubuntu 22.04 and have at least 4CPU and 4GB RAM. The edge devices can be owned by third parties (the applicant should have root privileges) and/or the applicant can also act as a third party that offers several edge devices in a certain geographical area that can be intermediated by NebulOuS for application deployments in the continuum. Each edge device must have a public IP and two TCP and UDP ports accessible from internet.
      • Provide a list of these edge devices that will be used for testing the deployment of your app.
      • Confirm that the proposed edge devices support Ubuntu 22.04 and have at least 4CPU and 4GB RAM by providing model number.
      • Confirm that each proposed edge devices have a public IP and two ports TCP and UDP accessible from internet.
    • Applicant should provide credentials to a cloud account (AWS or OpenStack) that will allow NebulOuS to automatically create VMs to deploy the application. In case of OpenStack, it should be publicly reachable from internet.
      • Provide details on the cloud provider (AWS or OpenStack) that you will be using to deploy the application.
    • At least two components of the application should be scalable according to fluctuations of incoming workload. Service Level Objectives that should drive the application reconfiguration should be based on infrastructure level metrics (at least 2), application-level metrics (at least 2) and/or data/workload related metrics. The last two types of metrics should be published by the application itself.
      • Provide details on the application components that require scaling based on the incoming workload of the application.
      • Identify the infrastructure/application metrics that indicate the need for scaling.
• Countries
  • Entities legally established in any of the following countries are eligible to participate in the NebulOuS Open Call #2:
    • The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions.
    • Horizon Europe associated countries (those that have signed an agreement with the EU as identified in the HE Programme Guide) according to the updated list published by the EC.

For more information, visit EC.