Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has emerged as a key component of smart cities. Connected vehicles are increasingly processing real-time data to respond immediately to user requests. However, the data must be sent to a remote cloud for processing. To resolve this issue, vehicular fog computing (VFC) has emerged as a promising paradigm that improves the quality of computation experiences for vehicles by offloading computation tasks from the cloud to network edges. Nevertheless, due to the resource restrictions of fog computing, only a limited number of vehicles are able to use it while it is still challenging to provide real-time responses for vehicular applications, such as traffic and accident warnings in the highly dynamic IoV environment. Therefore, in this article, we formulate the problem of allocating the limited fog resources to vehicular applications such that the service latency is minimized, by utilizing parked vehicles. We then propose a heuristic algorithm to efficiently find the solutions of the problem formulation. In addition, the proposed algorithm is combined with reinforcement learning to make more efficient resource allocation decisions, leveraging the vehicles’ movement and parking status collected from the smart environment of the city. Our simulation results show that our VFC resource allocation algorithm can achieve higher service satisfaction compared to conventional resource allocation algorithms.

Resource Allocation for Vehicular Fog Computing Using Reinforcement Learning Combined With Heuristic Information

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) brings the benefits of cloud computing, such as computation, networking, and storage resources, close to end users, thus reducing end-to-end latency and enabling various novel use cases, such as vehicle platooning, autonomous driving, and the tactile internet. However, frequent user mobility makes it challenging for the MEC to guarantee the close proximity to the users. To tackle this challenge, the underlying network has to be capable of seamlessly migrating applications between multiple MEC sites. This application migration requires the quick and flexible migration of the application states without service interruption, while minimizing the state transfer cost. In this article, we first study the state transfer optimization problem in the MEC. To solve this problem, we propose a metaheuristic algorithm based on Tabu search. We then propose Flexible and Low-Latency State Transfer in Mobile Edge Computing (FAST), the first programmable state forwarding framework. FAST flexibly and directly forwards states between source instance and destination instance based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Both simulation results and practical testbed results demonstrate the favorable performance of the proposed Tabu search algorithm and the FAST framework compared to the state-of-the-art schemes.

/pdf/fast-flexible-and-low-latency-state-transfer-in-mobile-edge-sgarqapbln.pdf

FAST: Flexible and Low-Latency State Transfer in Mobile Edge Computing

Driven by advanced 5G cellular systems, mobile edge computing (MEC) has emerged as a promising technology that can meet the energy efficiency and latency requirements of IoT applications. Edge service migration in the MEC environment plays an important role in ensuring user service quality and enhancing terminal computing capabilities. Application services on the edge side should be migrated from different edge servers to edge nodes closer to users, so that services follow users and ensure high-quality services. In addition, during the migration process, edge services face security challenges in an edge network environment without centralized management. To tackle this challenge, this paper innovatively proposes a blockchain-based security edge service migration framework, Falcon, which uses mobile agents different from VM and container as edge service carriers, making migration more flexible. Furthermore, we considered the dependencies between agents and designed a service migration algorithm to maximize the migration benefits and obtain better service quality. In order to ensure the migration of edge services in a safe and reliable environment, Falcon maintains an immutable alliance chain among multiple edge clouds. Finally, the experimental results show that “Falcon” has lower energy consumption and higher service quality.

/pdf/falcon-a-blockchain-based-edge-service-migration-framework-2az901dp32.pdf

Falcon: A Blockchain-Based Edge Service Migration Framework in MEC

5G is a critical infrastructure that will connect the whole society and bridge other critical infrastructure systems. Thus, cybersecurity emerges as crucial tenet within the 5G pathway. In this article, we discuss the concept of agile security within a 5G infrastructure taking into account two of its major technologies: Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). In this sense, we first discuss the 5G-driven MEC deployment from a NFV perspective. Secondly, we present the concept of agile security and how it can be embedded in the daily activities of mobile network operators (MNOs). Thirdly, we discuss risk management as a key element of the agile security framework. To illustrate its application, we propose the design of an agile security risk-aware edge server mechanism for 5G driven MEC deployment, which uses multiple thresholds and a load-balancing security control to mitigate the risks of resource exhaustion and violation of the service level agreement (SLA) faced by the edge servers while taking advantage of multiple cloud layers to increase the degree of availability and dependability of the system. Numerical results show that the proposed mechanism is able to keep the risk at lower levels.

/pdf/when-agile-security-meets-5g-1q0h7pldaw.pdf

When Agile Security Meets 5G

Container has been widely used in application development and management systems. However, there are two major challenges faced in the real deployment at edge servers. The varying workload of service requests and the startup delay of containers force a flexible resource provisioning scheme in containerized edge computing. To this end, we propose <bold/><monospace><bold>CEC</bold></monospace><bold/>, a containerized edge computing framework for dynamic resource provisioning, and especially for the smart connected community where exists multiple intelligent applications. <bold/><monospace><bold>CEC</bold></monospace><bold/> integrates workload prediction and resource pre-provisioning to enable low latency of user service requests and high utilization of edge resources. First, we present an online periodic request prediction algorithm. Then, we designed a control-based resource pre-provisioning algorithm based on the predicted request distribution, which is a self-adaptive controller to tune the resource for containers. We evaluate the performance of <bold/><monospace><bold>CEC</bold></monospace><bold/> by simulation and system experiments. The simulation experiment shows that the prediction accuracy of the proposed algorithm is higher than other two prediction algorithms. The testbed experiments demonstrate that the control-based resource pre-provisioning algorithm has low service latency and high resource utilization compared with baselines.

CEC: A Containerized Edge Computing Framework for Dynamic Resource Provisioning

In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile edge computing (MEC) has become an effective solution to meet the energy efficiency and delay requirements of IoT applications. In MEC systems, tasks can be offloaded from lightweight mobile devices to edge nodes that are nearer to the users. To improve user experience, we combine remote loading and redirection to accelerate the service migration. By tracing historic access patterns, the proposed method first generates a loading request list that locates the core codes in the image file of service applications for booting. The core codes are then be prefetched and cached automatically. Furthermore, to avoid the potential UI lagging caused by incomplete service migration, edge nodes can continuously load the remaining codes in the image file. Once the image file is completely migrated, the file will be reconstructed. The running virtual machine (VM) then switches data access to the merged image file. Experiments show that this method can observably reduce the loading time of a VM-based application.

Guanfei Guo

Papers

Fast Service Migration Method Based on Virtual Machine Technology for MEC