The following is an interview with Ignacio Lacalle Úbeda, an active member of the INSTAR IoT/Edge/Cloud/Internet (CEI-ETF) Task Force and a leading voice in computing continuum architecture and standardisation.
Based at the Universitat Politècnica de València, Ignacio is deeply involved in several AIOTI working groups, contributing to the edge computing gap framework, AI standardisation, and the cloud continuum research landscape.
He also contributes to international standardisation through ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41, where he leads the orchestration block in a preliminary work item on the computing continuum. In addition, Ignacio’s organisation is actively involved in ETSI, particularly in the Context Information Management (CIM) group, contributing to the evolution of the NGSI-LD specification. This work is supported through close collaboration with the FIWARE Foundation, with regular technical contributions and participation in standardisation discussions.
The interview is hosted by Luigi Colucci, INSTAR Communication Activities Leader on behalf of the INSTAR consortium.
Luigi: Hi Ignacio, hope you’re doing well! It’s a pleasure to have you with us. We’re excited to dive into your insights and experiences with AI, cloud-edge-IoT and computing continuum in this edition of the INSTAR Expert Interview series.
Ignacio: Hi Luigi, thanks for having me. I’m really glad to be here and to share some insights about my work with the INSTAR community.
Luigi: Thank you, Ignacio. Let’s dive right in. Given your involvement in international standardisation, and looking at it from more of an INSTAR perspective, are you engaged in any international standardization efforts in the regions INSTAR is targeting, such as US, South Korea or Canada?
Ignacio: I have been involved since last year in a clustering initiative that is called DISCOVER-US. You might have heard about it. It is participated by Trust-IT and other entities and they basically bring together a road map and webinars and workshops with NIST from the USA, to elaborate initial expressions of interest and initial synergies that can be established. I am participating actively in the documents that are issued by DISCOVER-US.
Also we have been lately closely monitoring and following your activities in INSTAR with Korea. Actually I participated last week in the webinar that was held with TTA from your side, not as a speaker but connected online, participating in the discussion and expressing our interest to collaborating from our position of research projects. So that would be my international experience, honestly.
Luigi: Thank you, Ignacio, for sharing those insights. It’s always great to hear about the efforts and activities of experts involved in international standardization.
As you know recently we produced fact sheet road maps in INSTAR, one for each task force including yours on IoT/Edge/Cloud/Internet. Among the priorities identified, in your view, which one do you think Europe absolutely cannot afford to ignore, and why?
Ignacio: I would say most of them are very relevant, but those that mention architecture are common to the IoT domain and the cloud-edge-IoT domain.
So, I would insist on this architecture, putting emphasis on the clear definition of interfaces that would give the freedom to community developers both in Korea, US, Japan, and Europe to define their own technological stacks and tools that as long as they comply with these interfaces and mechanisms, they would work and be certifiable, acceptable, secure, validated, put under pressure, and pass some tests. Therefore, for me, this would be thing that cannot be missed by any means.
Luigi: Thank you Ignacio, that’s a very valuable perspective. It’s clear how essential well-defined architectures and interfaces are, not just for ensuring interoperability, but also for giving developers across regions the freedom to innovate within a common framework.
One topic that often comes up is how developers tend to focus first on the product itself, with security and interoperability becoming priorities only later on, which is connected to what you just mentioned. If you were to advise developers directly, what would you say to convince them to consider these aspects right from the start?
Ignacio: If I have to give them a direct recommendation, it would be: you will save time if you do it now, rather than having to fix it later when it’s running in production, across many devices, and in a functional environment. It’s better to take a bit more time in the design and development phases, incorporating technologies for DevSecOps tests, dynamic testing, static testing, etc., right from the beginning to avoid issues later down the road.
So, this could be a clear message: it could save headaches, money, time, stress, everything indeed.
Luigi: That’s a great point. You made the value clear right away: fixing issues later costs more time. It sounds obvious, but it’s a big mindset shift and raising awareness is a solid first step.
Shifting a bit more to the international side, based on your priorities, expertise, and experience in research projects, what strategy do you think INSTAR should prioritize to balance the need for global alignment, for example with Korea or Japan, while still ensuring European leadership in standardization?
Ignacio: I will give you two answers, one more theoretical, and in my opinion, one more practical.
The more theoretical one would be putting us in contact with the proper channels. Sometimes we don’t have real visibility into what’s already going on, who the real players are, what is really being used and put in practice by companies and what’s going on. Helping us identify those synergies would be very useful.
From a more practical perspective, I would say it’s important to be realistic in in temporal time frames scope. Let me put it down to earth: when we participate in activities related to standardization, we sometimes lose focus because these are very long-term things to do. You start working now and maybe you don’t have the standard until five, six or seven years later. So it would be great to establish shorter sprints or milestones where we can see slow but stable progress in short times.
Luigi: Thank you, Ignacio. The theoretical answer is also a really valuable point, especially because it’s a low-effort activity that INSTAR could realistically take on and implement effectively.
One of the main challenges we’ve heard from other experts is that there is never enough awareness raised about standardization. So, to bring an interesting angle to this, I’m going to ask you what is a standard that people use every day without even realizing it?
Ignacio: HTTP, the browser, browsing through websites, or using your smartphone, all of these involve plenty of standards underlying them. Starting from audit, electromagnetic compatibility, everything that is exchanged through the network has an underlying protocol that was standardized at some point. So, in day-to-day actions, there are many examples, maybe hundreds or thousands per day.
Luigi: Thank you, Ignacio, for that detailed answer. Hearing about these everyday examples really shows how deeply standards are woven into our daily lives.
Now, moving on to the next question: which standard, past, present, or still in progress, are you personally most proud to have been involved in, and why?
Ignacio: As I said, I have not really contributed yet to an actually applicable standard. So I would say this ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41, because I lead some part of it and I have the opportunity to follow through this process which is a beautiful thing to do.
Luigi: Thanks, Ignacio. It’s great to hear about your role in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41 and how rewarding that process can be.
To keep things very practical, what would you say is the biggest barrier you or your colleagues have faced or are currently facing?
Ignacio: I think the long time frames and paperwork, undoubtedly these two.
Long time frames, so you lose focus, you start not being really updated, you don’t really have the energy to have always the update and the content to put there. Also the paperwork associated to it. It could be better, in my opinion, sometime people from the standards could take a bit more part of what we do and bring it with them, instead of the other way around, which I know is complicated and it’s really probably not feasible, but if you ask me about barriers, for me these are the ones.
Luigi: That’s interesting. So you’re suggesting fewer steps and more guidance, right?
Ignacio: Less steps and in every step I think less amount of documentation required and more demonstrations or practical examples, maybe that would be beneficial.
Luigi: Thank you, Ignacio. These are very practical yet highly relevant suggestions, it’s always valuable to hear insights from someone directly involved in the field.
Thank you for sharing your opinions and experience, it’s been a real pleasure having you in the INSTAR expert interview series.
Ignacio: You’re welcome, Luigi. Thanks for the opportunity, and I really look forward to working with you all and continuing to collaborate within the INSTAR project.