Editors's Introduction to the Special Issue on "Frontiers in Network Systems and Applications"

The growing availability of network infrastructure is paralleled by the ever growing number of network applications. These applications rely on network services to answer business needs and enable the interaction of users and devices. Not surprisingly, the development of applications promotes further research in the field of network systems. In particular, the growing complexity of network infrastructure gives rise to the need for even more complex research and development environments. This need is observed both in the case of complex fixed network layouts and mobile environments. To answer these needs the efforts of industry leaders and academia can be combined. By combining the ability to build and deploy complex network layouts with more theoretically grounded research, further progress in the field can be attained. This illustrates the benefits arising from the collaboration between industry leaders and academia. In 2012, to promote such cooperation of industry experts and researchers with academic research groups, the first Frontiers in Network Applications and Network Systems symposium was organised in Wroclaw, Poland. The symposium provided a forum for the exchange of ideas between network operators, designers and researchers. The symposium was organised as a part of the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS). This created a unique opportunity to discuss frontiers in network system development in view of recent developments in other areas of computer science. The solutions from many of these areas, such as the solutions incorporated from the domain of artificial intelligence, or database systems, are also vital components of modern network systems. The first edition of the conference was followed by even further cooperation with other network-related events of the FedCSIS multiconference. As a result, in 2013, an International Conference on Innovative Network Systems and Applications (iNetSApp) was organised for the first time. It included a variety of network-related topics with the emphasis on network systems, applications and services (SoFast-WS track of the conference) and wireless sensor networks (WSN track of the conference). This special issue includes selected extended versions of papers, most of which were presented during SoFast-WS conference i.e. the Frontiers in Network Applications, Network Systems and Web Services conference organised in 2013 in Krakow, Poland. The SoFast-WS conference is co-organised by the Research and Development Centre of Orange Polska – a part of a global chain of R&D Orange Labs centres of Orange telecom group, the idea of promoting the cooperation between business and academia is …