A Case Study of Edge Computing Implementations: Multi-access Edge Computing, Fog Computing and Cloudlet

With the explosive growth of intelligent and mobile devices, the current centralized cloud computing paradigm is encountering difficult challenges. Since the primary requirements have shifted towards implementing real-time response and supporting context awareness and mobility, there is an urgent need to bring resources and functions of centralized clouds to the edge of networks, which has led to the emergence of the edge computing paradigm. Edge computing increases the responsibilities of network edges by hosting computation and services, therefore enhancing performances and improving quality of experience (QoE). Fog computing, multi-access edge computing (MEC), and cloudlet are three typical and promising implementations of edge computing. Fog computing aims to build a system that enables cloud-to-thing service connectivity and works in concert with clouds, MEC is seen as a key technology of the fifth generation (5G) system, and Cloudlet is a micro-data center deployed in close proximity. In terms of deployment scenarios, Fog computing focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT), MEC mainly provides mobile RAN application solutions for 5G systems, and cloudlet offloads computing power at the network edge. In this paper, we present a comprehensive case study on these three edge computing implementations, including their architectures, differences, and their respective application scenario in IoT, 5G wireless systems, and smart edge. We discuss the requirements, benefits, and mechanisms of typical co-deployment cases for each paradigm and identify challenges and future directions in edge computing

Statistical Analysis on IoT Research Trends: A Survey

Internet of Things (IoT) is a novel and emerging paradigm to connect real/physical and virtual/logical world together. So, it will be necessary to apply other related scientific concepts in order to achieve this goal. The main focus of this paper is to identify the research topics in IoT. For this purpose, a comprehensive study has been conducted on the vast range of research articles. IoT concepts and issues are classified into some research domains and sub-domains based on the analysis of reviewed papers that have been published in 2015 & 2016. Then, these domains and sub-domains have been discussed as well as it is reported their statistical results. The obtained results of analysis show the most of the IoT research works are concentrated on technology and software services domains similarly at first rank, communication at second rank and trust management at third rank with 19%, 14% and 13% respectively. Also, a more accurate analysis indicates the most important and challenging sub-domains of mentioned domains which are: WSN, cloud computing, smart applications, M2M communication and security. Accordingly, this study will offer a useful and applicable broad viewpoint for researchers. In fact, our study indicates the current trends of IoT area