Task Offloading with Network Function Requirements in a Mobile Edge-Cloud Network

Xu, Z; Liang, W; Jia, M; Huang, M; Mao, G

Task Offloading with Network Function Requirements in a Mobile Edge-Cloud Network

Xu, Z Liang, W Jia, M Huang, M Mao, G

Permalink

Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2019, 18 (11), pp. 2672 - 2685
Issue Date:: 2019-11-01

Closed Access

	Filename	Description	Size
	08502709.pdf	Submitted Version	3.09 MB	Adobe PDF	View/Open

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Closed Access

This item is closed access and not available.

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Xu, Z	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Liang, W	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Jia, M	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Huang, M	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Mao, G https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3598-4949	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-11-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2019, 18 (11), pp. 2672 - 2685	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1536-1233	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/132449
dc.description.abstract	© 2018 IEEE. Pushing the cloud frontier to the network edge close to mobile users has attracted tremendous interest not only from cloud operators but also from network service providers. In particular, the deployment of cloudlets in metropolitan area networks enables network service providers to provide low-latency services to mobile users through implementing their specified virtualized network functions (VNFs) while meeting their Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we formulate a novel task offloading problem in a mobile edge-cloud network, where each offloading task requests a specified network function with a tolerable delay. We aim to maximize the number of requests admitted while minimizing the operational cost of admitted requests within a finite time horizon, through either sharing existing VNF instances or creating new VNF instances in cloudlets. We first show that the problem is NP-hard, and then devise an efficient online algorithm for the problem by reducing it to a series of minimum weight maximum matching problems. Considering dynamic changes of task offloading request patterns over time, we further develop an effective prediction mechanism for new VNF instance creations and idle VNF instance releases to further lower the operational cost of the network service provider. Also, we devise an online algorithm with a competitive ratio for a special case of the problem where the delay requirements of requests are negligible. We finally evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms through experimental simulations. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithms are promising.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1109/TMC.2018.2877623	en_US
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.subject.classification	Networking & Telecommunications	en_US
dc.title	Task Offloading with Network Function Requirements in a Mobile Edge-Cloud Network	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	11	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	18	en_US
utslib.for	0805 Distributed Computing	en_US
utslib.for	1005 Communications Technologies	en_US
utslib.for	0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Electrical and Data Engineering
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CRIN - Realtime Information Networks
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.issue	11	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	18	en_US

Abstract:

© 2018 IEEE. Pushing the cloud frontier to the network edge close to mobile users has attracted tremendous interest not only from cloud operators but also from network service providers. In particular, the deployment of cloudlets in metropolitan area networks enables network service providers to provide low-latency services to mobile users through implementing their specified virtualized network functions (VNFs) while meeting their Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we formulate a novel task offloading problem in a mobile edge-cloud network, where each offloading task requests a specified network function with a tolerable delay. We aim to maximize the number of requests admitted while minimizing the operational cost of admitted requests within a finite time horizon, through either sharing existing VNF instances or creating new VNF instances in cloudlets. We first show that the problem is NP-hard, and then devise an efficient online algorithm for the problem by reducing it to a series of minimum weight maximum matching problems. Considering dynamic changes of task offloading request patterns over time, we further develop an effective prediction mechanism for new VNF instance creations and idle VNF instance releases to further lower the operational cost of the network service provider. Also, we devise an online algorithm with a competitive ratio for a special case of the problem where the delay requirements of requests are negligible. We finally evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms through experimental simulations. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithms are promising.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/132449