Jeff Prevost

Professor John J. (Jeff) Prevost

Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Co-Founder and Assistant Director of The Open Cloud Institute
College of Engineering
The University of Texas at San Antonio

(more)Research Interests

Doctor Prevost's technical interests and experience are concentrated in the fields of cloud computing and control systems. He has over twenty years experience leading engineering and software development teams in developing complex systems.

Institutes and Research Labs

The Open Cloud Institute (OCI)

OCI is committed to research, education and industry partnerships that promote the investigation in and use of cloud computing in academia. By partering with key industry players, such as Facebook, Rackspace, AMD, and Yahoo, we have established labs, training and endowments that promote cloud at UTSA and San Antonio. Our goal is to have San Antonio known as Cloud City, USA.

The Cloud Lab for Engineering Application Research (CLEAR)

In the CLEAR lab, we leverage cloud architecture to collaborate with cross-discipline researchers to discover new ways to increase the velocity of scientific and engineering research through cloud-based compute and storage technologies.

Autonomous Control Engineering Laboratories (ACE Lab)

The University of Texas at San Antonio, Autonomous Control Engineering Laboratories are the proud home of the following teams: Renewable Energy, Autonomous Water Vehicle, Unmanned Aerial Systems / UAV Competition and the Cloud computing.

(view all)Recent Publications

B. Kelley, J. PREVOST, P. Rad, A. Fatima, “Securing Cloud Containers using Quantum Networking Channels”, Proc. Smart Cloud 2016, New York, November 2016.
abstract While all cloud based platforms possess security vulnerabilities, the additional security challenges with container systems stem from the sharing of Host OS among independent containers. If a malicious application was to break into the root of container Daemon, it could gain root access into the host kernel thereby compromising the entire system. It could create Denial-Of-Service attack for other user applications, rejecting service to other applications. In this paper, we propose a quantum network security framework for the cloud. We devise a means by which quantum particles, denoted entangled bell pairs, are routed to network nodes. This enables teleportation of quantum information between source and destination only when root privileges are required by an application. The secure quantum channel works on a use-once only policy, so the key data cannot be easily copied, regenerated or spoofed without detection. A network framework for multiple pre-staged channels is devised and we illustrate that policy for network routing of entangle particles formulated as a multi-tenant teleportation network, capable of disseminating key data to servers hosting Docker container applications. The framework can achieve provably high levels of security and is capable of integration into a cloud data center for securing applications using Docker Containers. We also describe quantum network layer protocols for cloud container security that leverage the unique properties of quantum entanglement. To resolve security concerns, this layer would control access between application and container daemon, thereby facilitating restricted communication with proper authentication.
A. Sahba, J. J. PREVOST, “Hypercube based clusters in Cloud Computing”, Proc. World Automation Congress (WAC) 2016, San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 31-August 4, 2016.
abstract High performance computing (HPC) means the aggregation of computational power to increase the ability of processing large problems in science, engineering, and business. HPC on the cloud allows performing on demand HPC tasks by high performance clusters in a cloud environment. The connection structure of the nodes in HPC clusters should provide fast internode communication. It is important that scalability is preserved as well. This paper proposes a hypercube topology for connecting the nodes in an HPC cluster that facilitates fast communications between nodes. In addition, the proposed hypercube topology provides the ability to scale, which is needed for high performance computing on the cloud.
J. Benson, J. J. Prevost, P. Rad, “Survey of Automated Software Deployment for Computational and Engineering Research”, IEEE Systems Conference (SysCon) 2016, Orlando, Fl., April 18-24, 2016.
abstract Software deployment is essential in today’s modern cloud systems. With advances in cloud technology, on demand cloud services offered by public providers are becoming increasingly powerful, anchoring the ecosystem of cloud services. Cloud infrastructure services are appealing in part because they enable customers to acquire and release infrastructure resources on demand for applications in response to load surges. This paper addresses the challenge of building an effective multi-cloud application deployment controller as a customer add-on outside of the cloud utility service itself. Such external controllers must function within the constraints of the cloud providers’ APIs. In this paper, we also describe the different steps necessary to deploy applications using such external controller. Then as a candidate for such external controllers, we use the defined taxonomy to survey several existing management tools such as Chef, SaltStack, and Ansible for application automation on cloud computing services based on the defined model. We use the taxonomy and survey results not only to identify similarities and differences of the architectural approaches of cloud computing, but also to identify areas requiring further research.
S. M. A. Karim, J. J. PREVOST, P. Rad, “Efficient Real-Time Mobile Computation in the Cloud using Containers”, International Journal of Computing and Digital Systems, Vol. 5, Issue 1, December 2015.
abstract not available
P.Rad, M. Jamshidi, G. Berman, J. J. PREVOST, “A Software Defined Networking Architecture for Software Defined Clouds”, International Journal of Complex Systems – Computing, Sensing and Control, Status: Accepted on July 16, 2015.
abstract not available
S.M.A. Karim, and J. J. PREVOST, “Efficient Mobile Computing using the Cloud”, Proceedings of the 2015 3rd International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud, Rome, Italy, August 24-26 2015.
abstract not available
M. Muppidi, P. Benavidez, J. J. PREVOST, P. Najafirad, and M. Jamshidi , “Cloud-Based Realtime Robotic Visual SLAM”, Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Systems Conference, Vancouver, 2015.
abstract not available

Professional Chronology

Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering The University of Texas at San Antonio 2016-present
Chief Technical Officer Emeritus Assessment Technologies 2014-present
Assistant Professor of Research, Electrical and Computer Engineering The University of Texas at San Antonio 2014-2016
Assistant Research Scientist The University of Texas at San Antonio 2013-2014
Chief Technical Officer Assessment Technologies 2011-2014
Director of Product Development Injury Sciences 2000-2011
Director of Information Systems PTM Consulting 1996-2000
Consultant PTM Consulting 1992-1996