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.

By submitting your article for distribution in this Special Interest Group publication, you hereby grant to ACM the following non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide rights:

• to publish in print on condition of acceptance by the editor
• to digitize and post your article in the electronic version of this publication
• to include the article in the ACM Digital Library and any Digital Library related services
• to allow users to make a personal copy of the article for non-commercial, educational or research purposes

However, as a contributing author, you retain copyright to your article and ACM will refer requests for republication directly to you.

The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.