A Survey on the Computing Continuum and Meta-Operating Systems: Perspectives, Architectures, Outcomes, and Open Challenges
Abstract
1. Introduction
1.1. Related Surveys
1.2. Contributions of This Work
- Investigation into all recent trends in architectural approaches regarding the integration of meta-OSs with the computing continuum.
- Emphasis on key enabling technologies such as security by design, coexistence with 6G networks, data management, and advanced AI/ML approaches that leverage response times and provide optimum resource management.
- A reference architectural approach is presented that takes into account all major players in the computing continuum and their interactions.
- Indicative use cases are presented, as well, that benefit from the cloud computing continuum.
- Finally, open issues are also identified to trigger further research activities.
2. Key Driving Factors
2.1. Machine Learning
2.2. Security by Design
2.3. Coexistence with 6G Networks
2.4. Data Management
3. Recent Works on Computing Continuum and Meta-OSs
4. Discussion—Open Issues and Key Challenges
- ML model deployment on lightweight IoT devices. In the CEI continuum, the goal is to offline train an appropriate ML model either at the edge or in the cloud and then deploy it on the IoT device. However, not all IoT devices have the processing capability to run hardware-consuming ML models. Hence, appropriate tiny ML models can be deployed that can effectively run in small IoT devices [62]. In the same context, as previously mentioned, different models may provide near-optimum results for different tasks. In this case, ML repositories in edge and or cloud servers are created and ML model deployment in lightweight IoT devices might occur for more than one trained model, which unavoidably poses additional computational requirements.
- As also mentioned in Section 4, the integration of computing continuum implementations with a 6G architecture is a challenging research field, as it will allow the seamless integration and coexistence of various cutting-edge technologies. However, as the landscape of connected devices increases, security concerns may become a major issue, as previously mentioned. Flexible network architectures allow the identification of multiple types of attacks [63]. To this end, either predictive or mitigation actions can be supported both for well-known and for zero-day attacks, with the help of additional emerging technologies, such as digital twins. In the same context, distributed computing systems are expected to play a key role in this direction, as the deployment of advanced ML algorithms, as well as the support of highly demanding computational applications, such as blockchain technology and encryption [64], cannot be fulfilled by lightweight IoT devices.
- The implementation of the zero-trust context. To this end, constant authentication of all involved devices takes place, which might significantly increase signaling burden in the network.
- When FL is employed for faster ML training times, as well as for privacy protection, a key issue that may rise is non-identical data distribution and severe heterogeneity of the produced datasets (data heterogeneity). This is especially the case in large-scale network orientations with diverse elements. In this case, either subsets of training nodes are formulated, or TL is employed to further improve the ML training latency [65].
- Different policy configurations in various network segments. As stated in the corresponding section, various network and cloud/edge providers may coexist in the computing cloud continuum. In this case, different access and usage policies may pose significant difficulties in proper resource management.
- As the concept of the computing continuum spans across CEI environments, the selection and adaptation of appropriate virtualization technologies remains a challenging issue. Container-based OS-level virtualization offers low overhead and fast deployment, making it attractive for lightweight edge and IoT devices. However, containers provide weaker isolation compared to hardware-level virtualization techniques, such as VMs and lightweight MicroVMs, which are increasingly considered in multi-tenant or security-sensitive edge deployments. Therefore, the challenge is not a binary choice between containerization and virtualization, but rather the improvement and combination of virtualization mechanisms that balance isolation, performance, resource footprint, and orchestration complexity in edge-native environments.
- Related to the last point, emerging execution models such as WebAssembly (Wasm) are gaining attention as lightweight and portable alternatives for workload execution across the computing continuum. Wasm provides strong sandboxing, near-native performance, and fast startup times, making it suitable for constrained edge and IoT environments. In parallel, edge-native orchestration frameworks, such as KubeEdge, extend cloud-native virtualization and orchestration principles toward the edge, enabling consistent management of containerized and virtualized workloads across heterogeneous infrastructures.
- Network Provider (NP): The NP is providing the network and connectivity resources that allows the interconnection of the cloud with near-edge and far edge locations, as well as the provisioning of the required resources supporting gateways and remote device connectivity. Within the cloud continuum, there can be multiple NPs depending on the footprint of the infrastructure and the administrative domains.
- Cloud Provider (CP): The CP is provisioning the cloud resources responsible for hosting the application components. Commonly, the CP operates on large cloud infrastructures (e.g., Hyper scalars), providing points of presence (PoPs) of local interest for allowing fast connectivity, low latency, load balancing, and close to the device resource availability.
- Edge Computing Platform Provider (ECPP): Similarly, the ECPP is providing cloud resources at the edge (near or far) of the infrastructure, capable of hosting less resource demanding application’s components coupled with specific hardware (HW) acceleration capabilities suitable for AI/ML workloads. It is assumed that the ECPP infrastructure topology allows for reaching large and/or dense IoT deployments.
- IoT Provider (IoTP): IoT provider is the actor providing the IoT infrastructure that is being deployed across the continuum. This infrastructure may include devices that allow deployment of continuum controllers or/and agents. Moreover, in the case that the capability to deploy the continuum is restricted either due to processing resource limitations or because of access to the HW device OS, appropriate APIs are exploited. The IoTP through the continuum is gaining the ability to open the infrastructure to multiple vertical applications, since all operate on the common continuum software.
- The Application Developer (AppDev) and the Application Integrator (AppInt) can be seen as distinguishing roles played by the same actor or different, depending on the complexity of the ecosystem. The first one is developing application components, enhancing functionality and operation. The latter one is integrating application components that may arrive even from different developers, so that a full-blown application is created and modeled/described in a compatible to the continuum model. In this context the AppInt is experienced with the presented data model, descriptor, and operation specificities. Consequently, the AppDev depends on the Application Integrator to formulate the application descriptors in a way that is comprehensible by the continuum in order to be deployed over an instance.
- Intelligence Coordination: Coordination enables optimization and predictive analytics and ML models and its use across the continuum. This will include policies for the use, sharing, and updating of models across the edge-cloud continuum, including FL strategies.
- Data Processing: Data processing and storage in formats and databases optimized for the application of analytics tasks depending on the resources available of the hosting device in the continuum.
- AI Analytics: A library of optimized ML algorithms for the training and testing of predictive and optimization models, including deep learning, adaptive machine learning, and reinforcement learning libraries optimized to operate in constrained devices.
- AI Models Marketplace: A collection of pre-trained analytics and ML models to be reused, updated, refined (e.g., TL), and combined to foster the application of new AI techniques in the different layers of the computing continuum meta-OS. To this end, a challenging task is to provide the functionality to train and compress these models for operation in constrained devices (e.g., pruning unused branches in trees or simplifying NN architectures).
- Trustworthy AI: Provide specific algorithms to analyze the datasets and develop models conforming to policies for privacy and trustworthiness. Functionality for models to be trained in a FL fashion to ensure data protection in datasets containing user-specific data will be provided as well as explainable AI algorithms to provide reassurance of output of models to the different layers of the continuum.
5. Potential Use Cases
5.1. Predictive Maintenance in Industrial 4.0 Scenarios
5.2. Load Forecasting in Smart Grid Environments
5.3. Smart Cities
5.4. Infrastructure Monitoring
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
| 5G | Fifth Generation |
| 6G | Sixth Generation |
| 6GCC | 6G Computing Continuum (6GCC) |
| AI | Artificial Intelligence |
| AIoT | Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) |
| AP | Access Point |
| API | Application Programming Interface |
| AppDev | Application Developer |
| AppInt | Application Integrator |
| CEC | Cloud Edge Continuum |
| CEI | Cloud Edge IoT |
| CIS | Customer Information System |
| CP | Cloud Provider |
| DCS | Distributed Computing System |
| DMM | Data Management Module |
| DMS | Data Management System |
| DRL | Deep Reinforcement Learning |
| ECPP | Edge Cloud Platform Provider |
| EU | European Union |
| GIS | Geographical Information System |
| FL | Federated Learning |
| HW | Hardware |
| IM | Intelligence Module |
| IoT | Internet of Things |
| IoTinuum | IoT Computing Continuum |
| IoTP | IoT Provider |
| ML | Machine Learning |
| MQTT | Message Queuing Telemetry Transport |
| NFV | Network Function Virtualization |
| NN | Neural Network |
| NP | Network Provider |
| OS | Operating System |
| RL | Reinforcement Learning |
| PaaS | Platform as a Service |
| PoP | Point of Presence |
| PUF | Physical Unclonable Function |
| QoS | Quality of Service |
| SaS | Security as a Service |
| SBA | Service Based Architecture |
| SDN | Software Defined Networking |
| SDS | Self-Distribution Systems |
| TL | Transfer Learning |
| Wasm | WebAssembly |
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| Paper | Year | Key Directions | Limitations and Open Issues |
|---|---|---|---|
| [5] | 2023 | Cloud-Edge-IoT Systems | Focus is on CEI systems and not on access or data management architectures in the continuum |
| [13] | 2023 | Cloud Edge orchestration at the edge | Evaluation of containerization or virtualization in real world scenarios |
| [15] | 2024 | AI on the edge | Cloud-Edge orchestration Hardware integration to support advanced AI/ML applications |
| [16] | 2023 | Architecture of distributed computing systems | Learning Models Intelligent protocols for effective resource management |
| [17] | 2025 | Recent trends in computing continuum systems | Flexible resource allocation Mobility in the continuum |
| [18] | 2025 | SDN and NFV in cloud edge orientations | Performance evaluation in real-world orientations |
| Our work | - | Architectural approaches of meta-OSs for the computing continuum | - |
| Paper | Year | Key Directions | Key Driving Factors | Limitations and Open Issues | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI/ML | Security | 6G | Open Access | ||||
| [34] | 2024 | Presentation of the FLUIDOS Project AI optimization during application execution | × | Deployment in real-world scenarios | |||
| [36] | 2023 | Presentation of the NebulOus project | × | × | Performance evaluation in real world scenarios | ||
| [38] | 2024 | Presentation of the NEMO Project Open-source components for various features (e.g., AI, security, service and data management) | × | × | × | Performance evaluation in large scale scenarios | |
| [40] | 2025 | aerOS Meta-OS; cross-domain service orchestration; distributed domain federation; Data Fabric | Large-scale validation across heterogeneous administrative domains | ||||
| [42] | 2024 | Six proposed stages of the IoT Computing Continuum | × | Integration of programmable network stages | |||
| [43] | 2022 | 6G Computing Continuum | × | Integration of the computing continuum with 6G architectural approaches | |||
| [44] | 2022 | Presentation of the RAMOS concept | × | × | × | × | Context-aware machine learning |
| [45] | 2024 | Task offloading in IoT Cloud Edge scenarios via DRL | × | × | × | Extension in dynamic topologies Additional performance metrics during optimization | |
| [46] | 2023 | Federated learning in IoT scenarios | × | × | × | Evaluation in additional real-world scenarios | |
| [48] | 2023 | Application resources distribution in the computing continuum | × | Evaluation of the SDS approach in more complex scenarios Scalability | |||
| [49] | 2025 | Resource pricing in computing continuum | More diverse user behavior scenarios | ||||
| [50] | 2024 | Virtualization vs. Containerization in the cloud continuum | - | - | - | - | Performance evaluation of bigger hardware architectures for Edge or Cloud Security issues in both approaches |
| [51] | 2025 | Edge–Cloud Continuum Planning | × | Integration of AI techniques | |||
| [52] | 2024 | Edge cloud computing and communication | × | × | Efficient communication technologies for the different parts of the continuum | ||
| [53] | 2024 | Open-source framework of NEMO project | × | × | × | Performance evaluation in large scale scenarios | |
| [54] | 2023 | Physical Unclonable Functions | × | Evaluation in realistic scenarios | |||
| [57] | 2025 | Ratio1 meta-OS Decentralized ML and device authentication | × | × | Additional privacy policies Broader cross-chain interoperability | ||
| [58] | 2023 | Large scale interconnection of IoT devices | - | - | - | - | Only one smartphone was used for performance evaluation Additional testing with diverse IoT devices |
| [59] | 2025 | The COGNIFOG framework | × | × | × | Orchestration intelligence Decentralized, privacy-preserving AI training at the edge | |
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Gkonis, P.K.; Giannopoulos, A.; Nomikos, N.; Sarakis, L.; Nikolakakis, V.; Patsourakis, G.; Trakadas, P. A Survey on the Computing Continuum and Meta-Operating Systems: Perspectives, Architectures, Outcomes, and Open Challenges. Sensors 2026, 26, 799. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26030799
Gkonis PK, Giannopoulos A, Nomikos N, Sarakis L, Nikolakakis V, Patsourakis G, Trakadas P. A Survey on the Computing Continuum and Meta-Operating Systems: Perspectives, Architectures, Outcomes, and Open Challenges. Sensors. 2026; 26(3):799. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26030799
Chicago/Turabian StyleGkonis, Panagiotis K., Anastasios Giannopoulos, Nikolaos Nomikos, Lambros Sarakis, Vasileios Nikolakakis, Gerasimos Patsourakis, and Panagiotis Trakadas. 2026. "A Survey on the Computing Continuum and Meta-Operating Systems: Perspectives, Architectures, Outcomes, and Open Challenges" Sensors 26, no. 3: 799. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26030799
APA StyleGkonis, P. K., Giannopoulos, A., Nomikos, N., Sarakis, L., Nikolakakis, V., Patsourakis, G., & Trakadas, P. (2026). A Survey on the Computing Continuum and Meta-Operating Systems: Perspectives, Architectures, Outcomes, and Open Challenges. Sensors, 26(3), 799. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26030799

