Computing resource allocation in three-tier IoT fog networks: a joint optimization approach combining Stackelberg game and matching

Fog computing is a promising architecture to provide economical and low latency data services for future Internet of Things (IoT)-based network systems. Fog computing relies on a set of low-power fog nodes (FNs) that are located close to the end users to offload the services originally targeting at cloud data centers. In this paper, we consider a specific fog computing network consisting of a set of data service operators (DSOs) each of which controls a set of FNs to provide the required data service to a set of data service subscribers (DSSs). How to allocate the limited computing resources of FNs to all the DSSs to achieve an optimal and stable performance is an important problem. Therefore, we propose a joint optimization framework for all FNs, DSOs, and DSSs to achieve the optimal resource allocation schemes in a distributed fashion. In the framework, we first formulate a Stackelberg game to analyze the pricing problem for the DSOs as well as the resource allocation problem for the DSSs. Under the scenarios that the DSOs can know the expected amount of resource purchased by the DSSs, a many-to-many matching game is applied to investigate the pairing problem between DSOs and FNs. Finally, within the same DSO, we apply another layer of many-to-many matching between each of the paired FNs and serving DSSs to solve the FN-DSS pairing problem. Simulation results show that our proposed framework can significantly improve the performance of the IoT-based network systems

Container-based load balancing for energy efficiency in software-defined edge computing environment

The workload generated by the Internet of Things (IoT)-based infrastructure is often handled by the cloud data centers (DCs). However, in recent time, an exponential increase in the deployment of the IoT-based infrastructure has escalated the workload on the DCs. So, these DCs are not fully capable to meet the strict demand of IoT devices in regard to the lower latency as well as high data rate while provisioning IoT workloads. Therefore, to reinforce the latency-sensitive workloads, an intersection layer known as edge computing has successfully balanced the entire service provisioning landscape. In this IoT-edge-cloud ecosystem, large number of interactions and data transmissions among different layer can increase the load on underlying network infrastructure. So, software-defined edge computing has emerged as a viable solution to resolve these latency-sensitive workload issues. Additionally, energy consumption has been witnessed as a major challenge in resource-constrained edge systems. The existing solutions are not fully compatible in Software-defined Edge ecosystem for handling IoT workloads with an optimal trade-off between energy-efficiency and latency. Hence, this article proposes a lightweight and energy-efficient container-as-a-service (CaaS) approach based on the software-define edge computing to provision the workloads generated from the latency-sensitive IoT applications. A Stackelberg game is formulated for a two-period resource allocation between end-user/IoT devices and Edge devices considering the service level agreement. Furthermore, an energy-efficient ensemble for container allocation, consolidation and migration is also designed for load balancing in software-defined edge computing environment. The proposed approach is validated through a simulated environment with respect to CPU serve time, network serve time, overall delay, lastly energy consumption. The results obtained show the superiority of the proposed in comparison to the existing variants

GAME-SCORE: Game-based energy-aware cloud scheduler and simulator for computational clouds

Energy-awareness remains one of the main concerns for today's cloud computing (CC) operators. The optimisation of energy consumption in both cloud computational clusters and computing servers is usually related to scheduling problems. The definition of an optimal scheduling policy which does not negatively impact to system performance and task completion time is still challenging. In this work, we present a new simulation tool for cloud computing, GAME-SCORE, which implements a scheduling model based on the Stackelberg game. This game presents two main players: a) the scheduler and b) the energy-efficiency agent. We used the GAME-SCORE simulator to analyse the efficiency of the proposed game-based scheduling model. The obtained results show that the Stackelberg cloud scheduler performs better than static energy-optimisation strategies and can achieve a fair balance between low energy consumption and short makespan in a very short tim

When Mobile Blockchain Meets Edge Computing

Blockchain, as the backbone technology of the current popular Bitcoin digital currency, has become a promising decentralized data management framework. Although blockchain has been widely adopted in many applications, e.g., finance, healthcare, and logistics, its application in mobile services is still limited. This is due to the fact that blockchain users need to solve preset proof-of-work puzzles to add new data, i.e., a block, to the blockchain. Solving the proof-of-work, however, consumes substantial resources in terms of CPU time and energy, which is not suitable for resource-limited mobile devices. To facilitate blockchain applications in future mobile Internet of Things systems, multiple access mobile edge computing appears to be an auspicious solution to solve the proof-of-work puzzles for mobile users. We first introduce a novel concept of edge computing for mobile blockchain. Then, we introduce an economic approach for edge computing resource management. Moreover, a prototype of mobile edge computing enabled blockchain systems is presented with experimental results to justify the proposed concept.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Communications Magazin

Energy and performance-aware scheduling and shut-down models for efficient cloud-computing data centers.

This Doctoral Dissertation, presented as a set of research contributions, focuses on resource efficiency in data centers. This topic has been faced mainly by the development of several energy-efficiency, resource managing and scheduling policies, as well as the simulation tools required to test them in realistic cloud computing environments. Several models have been implemented in order to minimize energy consumption in Cloud Computing environments. Among them: a) Fifteen probabilistic and deterministic energy-policies which shut-down idle machines; b) Five energy-aware scheduling algorithms, including several genetic algorithm models; c) A Stackelberg game-based strategy which models the concurrency between opposite requirements of Cloud-Computing systems in order to dynamically apply the most optimal scheduling algorithms and energy-efficiency policies depending on the environment; and d) A productive analysis on the resource efficiency of several realistic cloud–computing environments. A novel simulation tool called SCORE, able to simulate several data-center sizes, machine heterogeneity, security levels, workload composition and patterns, scheduling strategies and energy-efficiency strategies, was developed in order to test these strategies in large-scale cloud-computing clusters. As results, more than fifty Key Performance Indicators (KPI) show that more than 20% of energy consumption can be reduced in realistic high-utilization environments when proper policies are employed.Esta Tesis Doctoral, que se presenta como compendio de artículos de investigación, se centra en la eficiencia en la utilización de los recursos en centros de datos de internet. Este problema ha sido abordado esencialmente desarrollando diferentes estrategias de eficiencia energética, gestión y distribución de recursos, así como todas las herramientas de simulación y análisis necesarias para su validación en entornos realistas de Cloud Computing. Numerosas estrategias han sido desarrolladas para minimizar el consumo energético en entornos de Cloud Computing. Entre ellos: 1. Quince políticas de eficiencia energética, tanto probabilísticas como deterministas, que apagan máquinas en estado de espera siempre que sea posible; 2. Cinco algoritmos de distribución de tareas que tienen en cuenta el consumo energético, incluyendo varios modelos de algoritmos genéticos; 3. Una estrategia basada en la teoría de juegos de Stackelberg que modela la competición entre diferentes partes de los centros de datos que tienen objetivos encontrados. Este modelo aplica dinámicamente las estrategias de distribución de tareas y las políticas de eficiencia energética dependiendo de las características del entorno; y 4. Un análisis productivo sobre la eficiencia en la utilización de recursos en numerosos escenarios de Cloud Computing. Una nueva herramienta de simulación llamada SCORE se ha desarrollado para analizar las estrategias antes mencionadas en clústers de Cloud Computing de grandes dimensiones. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que se puede conseguir un ahorro de energía superior al 20% en entornos realistas de alta utilización si se emplean las estrategias de eficiencia energética adecuadas. SCORE es open source y puede simular diferentes centros de datos con, entre otros muchos, los siguientes parámetros: Tamaño del centro de datos; heterogeneidad de los servidores; tipo, composición y patrones de carga de trabajo, estrategias de distribución de tareas y políticas de eficiencia energética, así como tres gestores de recursos centralizados: Monolítico, Two-level y Shared-state. Como resultados, esta herramienta de simulación arroja más de 50 Key Performance Indicators (KPI) de rendimiento general, de distribucin de tareas y de energía.Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado U

Distributed resource allocation for data center networks: a hierarchical game approach

The increasing demand of data computing and storage for cloud-based services motivates the development and deployment of large-scale data centers. This paper studies the resource allocation problem for the data center networking system when multiple data center operators (DCOs) simultaneously serve multiple service subscribers (SSs). We formulate a hierarchical game to analyze this system where the DCOs and the SSs are regarded as the leaders and followers, respectively. In the proposed game, each SS selects its serving DCO with preferred price and purchases the optimal amount of resources for the SS's computing requirements. Based on the responses of the SSs' and the other DCOs', the DCOs decide their resource prices so as to receive the highest profit. When the coordination among DCOs is weak, we consider all DCOs are noncooperative with each other, and propose a sub-gradient algorithm for the DCOs to approach a sub-optimal solution of the game. When all DCOs are sufficiently coordinated, we formulate a coalition game among all DCOs and apply Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining as a resource division approach to achieve high utilities. Both solutions constitute the Stackelberg Equilibrium. The simulation results verify the performance improvement provided by our proposed approaches