Exploring traffic and QoS management mechanisms to support mobile cloud computing using service localisation in heterogeneous environments

In recent years, mobile devices have evolved to support an amalgam of multimedia applications and content. However, the small size of these devices poses a limit the amount of local computing resources. The emergence of Cloud technology has set the ground for an era of task offloading for mobile devices and we are now seeing the deployment of applications that make more extensive use of Cloud processing as a means of augmenting the capabilities of mobiles. Mobile Cloud Computing is the term used to describe the convergence of these technologies towards applications and mechanisms that offload tasks from mobile devices to the Cloud. In order for mobile devices to access Cloud resources and successfully offload tasks there, a solution for constant and reliable connectivity is required. The proliferation of wireless technology ensures that networks are available almost everywhere in an urban environment and mobile devices can stay connected to a network at all times. However, user mobility is often the cause of intermittent connectivity that affects the performance of applications and ultimately degrades the user experience. 5th Generation Networks are introducing mechanisms that enable constant and reliable connectivity through seamless handovers between networks and provide the foundation for a tighter coupling between Cloud resources and mobiles. This convergence of technologies creates new challenges in the areas of traffic management and QoS provisioning. The constant connectivity to and reliance of mobile devices on Cloud resources have the potential of creating large traffic flows between networks. Furthermore, depending on the type of application generating the traffic flow, very strict QoS may be required from the networks as suboptimal performance may severely degrade an application’s functionality. In this thesis, I propose a new service delivery framework, centred on the convergence of Mobile Cloud Computing and 5G networks for the purpose of optimising service delivery in a mobile environment. The framework is used as a guideline for identifying different aspects of service delivery in a mobile environment and for providing a path for future research in this field. The focus of the thesis is placed on the service delivery mechanisms that are responsible for optimising the QoS and managing network traffic. I present a solution for managing traffic through dynamic service localisation according to user mobility and device connectivity. I implement a prototype of the solution in a virtualised environment as a proof of concept and demonstrate the functionality and results gathered from experimentation. Finally, I present a new approach to modelling network performance by taking into account user mobility. The model considers the overall performance of a persistent connection as the mobile node switches between different networks. Results from the model can be used to determine which networks will negatively affect application performance and what impact they will have for the duration of the user's movement. The proposed model is evaluated using an analytical approac

Review and analysis of networking challenges in cloud computing

Cloud Computing offers virtualized computing, storage, and networking resources, over the Internet, to organizations and individual users in a completely dynamic way. These cloud resources are cheaper, easier to manage, and more elastic than sets of local, physical, ones. This encourages customers to outsource their applications and services to the cloud. The migration of both data and applications outside the administrative domain of customers into a shared environment imposes transversal, functional problems across distinct platforms and technologies. This article provides a contemporary discussion of the most relevant functional problems associated with the current evolution of Cloud Computing, mainly from the network perspective. The paper also gives a concise description of Cloud Computing concepts and technologies. It starts with a brief history about cloud computing, tracing its roots. Then, architectural models of cloud services are described, and the most relevant products for Cloud Computing are briefly discussed along with a comprehensive literature review. The paper highlights and analyzes the most pertinent and practical network issues of relevance to the provision of high-assurance cloud services through the Internet, including security. Finally, trends and future research directions are also presented

Revisiting the arguments for edge computing research

The first author is supported by a Royal Society Short Industry Fellowship.This article argues that low latency, high bandwidth, device proliferation, sustainable digital infrastructure, and data privacy and sovereignty continue to motivate the need for edge computing research even though its initial concepts were formulated more than a decade ago.PostprintPeer reviewe

Mobile data and computation offloading in mobile cloud computing

Le trafic mobile augmente considérablement en raison de la popularité des appareils mobiles et des applications mobiles. Le déchargement de données mobiles est une solution permettant de réduire la congestion du réseau cellulaire. Le déchargement de calcul mobile peut déplacer les tâches de calcul d'appareils mobiles vers le cloud. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions d'abord le problème du déchargement de données mobiles dans l'architecture du cloud computing mobile. Afin de minimiser les coûts de transmission des données, nous formulons le processus de déchargement des données sous la forme d'un processus de décision de Markov à horizon fini. Nous proposons deux algorithmes de déchargement des données pour un coût minimal. Ensuite, nous considérons un marché sur lequel un opérateur de réseau mobile peut vendre de la bande passante à des utilisateurs mobiles. Nous formulons ce problème sous la forme d'une enchère comportant plusieurs éléments afin de maximiser les bénéfices de l'opérateur de réseau mobile. Nous proposons un algorithme d'optimisation robuste et deux algorithmes itératifs pour résoudre ce problème. Enfin, nous nous concentrons sur les problèmes d'équilibrage de charge afin de minimiser la latence du déchargement des calculs. Nous formulons ce problème comme un jeu de population. Nous proposons deux algorithmes d'équilibrage de la charge de travail basés sur la dynamique évolutive et des protocoles de révision. Les résultats de la simulation montrent l'efficacité et la robustesse des méthodes proposées.Global mobile traffic is increasing dramatically due to the popularity of smart mobile devices and data hungry mobile applications. Mobile data offloading is considered as a promising solution to alleviate congestion in cellular network. Mobile computation offloading can move computation intensive tasks and large data storage from mobile devices to cloud. In this thesis, we first study mobile data offloading problem under the architecture of mobile cloud computing. In order to minimize the overall cost for data delivery, we formulate the data offloading process, as a finite horizon Markov decision process, and we propose two data offloading algorithms to achieve minimal communication cost. Then, we consider a mobile data offloading market where mobile network operator can sell bandwidth to mobile users. We formulate this problem as a multi-item auction in order to maximize the profit of mobile network operator. We propose one robust optimization algorithm and two iterative algorithms to solve this problem. Finally, we investigate computation offloading problem in mobile edge computing. We focus on workload balancing problems to minimize the transmission latency and computation latency of computation offloading. We formulate this problem as a population game, in order to analyze the aggregate offloading decisions, and we propose two workload balancing algorithms based on evolutionary dynamics and revision protocols. Simulation results show the efficiency and robustness of our proposed methods

Managing IT Operations in a Cloud-driven Enterprise: Case Studies

Enterprise IT needs a new approach to manage processes, applications and infrastructure which are distributed across a mix of environments. In an Enterprise traditionally a request to deliver an application to business could take weeks or months due to decision-making functions, multiple approval bodies and processes that exist within IT departments. These delays in delivering a requested service can lead to dissatisfaction, with the result that the line-of-business group may seek alternative sources of IT capabilities. Also the complex IT infrastructure of these enterprises cannot keep up with the demand of new applications and services from an increasingly dispersed and mobile workforce which results in slower rollout of critical applications and services, limited resources, poor operation visibility and control. In such scenarios, it’s better to adopt cloud services to substitute for new application deployment otherwise most Enterprise IT organizations face the risk of losing 'market share' to the Public Cloud. Using Cloud Model the organizations should increase ROI, lower TCO and operate with seamless IT operations. It also helps to beat shadow IT and the practice of resource over-or under provisioning. In this research paper we have given two case studies where we migrated two Enterprise IT application to public clouds for the purpose of lower TCO and higher ROI. By migrating, the IT organizations improved IT agility, enterprise-class software for performance, security and control. In this paper, we also focus on the advantages and challenges while adopting cloud services

Effective scheduling algorithm for on-demand XML data broadcasts in wireless environments

The organization of data on wireless channels, which aims to reduce the access time of mobile clients, is a key problem in data broadcasts. Many scheduling algorithms have been designed to organize flat data on air. However, how to effectively schedule semi-structured information such as XML data on wireless channels is still a challenge. In this paper, we firstly propose a novel method to greatly reduce the tuning time by splitting query results into XML snippets and to achieve better access efficiency by combining similar ones. Then we analyze the data broadcast scheduling problem of on-demand XML data broadcasts and define the efficiency of a data item. Based on the definition, a Least Efficient Last (LEL) scheduling algorithm is also devised to effectively organize XML data on wireless channels. Finally, we study the performance of our algorithms through extensive experiments. The results show that our scheduling algorithms can reduce both access time and tuning time signifcantly when compared with existing work