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Cost-Efficient NFV-Enabled Mobile Edge-Cloud for Low Latency Mobile Applications

Yang, B; Chai, WK; Xu, Z; Katsaros, KV; Pavlou, G; (2018) Cost-Efficient NFV-Enabled Mobile Edge-Cloud for Low Latency Mobile Applications. IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management , 15 (1) pp. 475-488. 10.1109/TNSM.2018.2790081. Green open access

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Abstract

Mobile edge-cloud (MEC) aims to support low latency mobile services by bringing remote cloud services nearer to mobile users. However, in order to deal with dynamic workloads, MEC is deployed in a large number of fixed-location micro-clouds, leading to resource wastage during stable/low workload periods. Limiting the number of micro-clouds improves resource utilization and saves operational costs, but faces service performance degradations due to insufficient physical capacity during peak time from nearby micro-clouds. To efficiently support services with low latency requirement under varying workload conditions, we adopt the emerging Network Function Virtualization (NFV)-enabled MEC, which offers new flexibility in hosting MEC services in any virtualized network node, e.g., access points, routers, etc. This flexibility overcomes the limitations imposed by fixed-location solutions, providing new freedom in terms of MEC service-hosting locations. In this paper, we address the questions on where and when to allocate resources as well as how many resources to be allocated among NFV-enabled MECs, such that both the low latency requirements of mobile services and MEC cost efficiency are achieved. We propose a dynamic resource allocation framework that consists of a fast heuristic-based incremental allocation mechanism that dynamically performs resource allocation and a reoptimization algorithm that periodically adjusts allocation to maintain a near-optimal MEC operational cost over time. We show through extensive simulations that our flexible framework always manages to allocate sufficient resources in time to guarantee continuous satisfaction of applications & #x2019; low latency requirements. At the same time, our proposal saves up to 33% of cost in comparison to existing fixed-location MEC solutions.

Type: Article
Title: Cost-Efficient NFV-Enabled Mobile Edge-Cloud for Low Latency Mobile Applications
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1109/TNSM.2018.2790081
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TNSM.2018.2790081
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Mobile edge-cloud, low latency applications, dynamic resource allocation, approximation algorithm
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041990
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