Introducing mobile edge computing capabilities through distributed 5G Cloud Enabled Small Cells

Current trends in broadband mobile networks are addressed towards the placement of different capabilities at the edge of the mobile network in a centralised way. On one hand, the split of the eNB between baseband processing units and remote radio headers makes it possible to process some of the protocols in centralised premises, likely with virtualised resources. On the other hand, mobile edge computing makes use of processing and storage capabilities close to the air interface in order to deploy optimised services with minimum delay. The confluence of both trends is a hot topic in the definition of future 5G networks. The full centralisation of both technologies in cloud data centres imposes stringent requirements to the fronthaul connections in terms of throughput and latency. Therefore, all those cells with limited network access would not be able to offer these types of services. This paper proposes a solution for these cases, based on the placement of processing and storage capabilities close to the remote units, which is especially well suited for the deployment of clusters of small cells. The proposed cloud-enabled small cells include a highly efficient microserver with a limited set of virtualised resources offered to the cluster of small cells. As a result, a light data centre is created and commonly used for deploying centralised eNB and mobile edge computing functionalities. The paper covers the proposed architecture, with special focus on the integration of both aspects, and possible scenarios of application.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Allocation of Communication and Computation Resources in Mobile Networks

Konvergence komunikačních a výpočetních technologií vedlo k vzniku Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC). MEC poskytuje výpočetní výkon na tzv. hraně mobilních sítí (základnové stanice, jádro mobilní sítě), který lze využít pro optimalizaci mobilních sítí v reálném čase. Optimalizacev reálném čase je umožněna díky nízkému komunikačnímu zpoždění například v porovnání s Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). Optimalizace mobilních sítí vyžaduje informace o mobilní síti od uživatelských zařízeních, avšak sběr těchto informací využívá komunikační prostředky, které jsou využívány i pro přenos uživatelských dat. Zvyšující se počet uživatelských zařízení, senzorů a taktéž komunikace vozidel tvoří překážku pro sběr informací o mobilních sítích z důvodu omezeného množství komunikačních prostředků. Tudíž je nutné navrhnout řešení, která umožní sběr těchto informací pro potřeby optimalizace mobilních sítí. V této práci je navrženo řešení pro komunikaci vysokého počtu zařízeních, které je postaveno na využití přímé komunikace mezi zařízeními. Pro motivování uživatelů, pro využití přeposílání dat pomocí přímé komunikace mezi uživateli je navrženo přidělování komunikačních prostředků jenž vede na přirozenou spolupráci uživatelů. Dále je provedena analýza spotřeby energie při využití přeposílání dat pomocí přímé komunikace mezi uživateli pro ukázání jejích výhod z pohledu spotřeby energie. Pro další zvýšení počtu komunikujících zařízení je využito mobilních létajících základových stanic (FlyBS). Pro nasazení FlyBS je navržen algoritmus, který hledá pozici FlyBS a asociaci uživatel k FlyBS pro zvýšení spokojenosti uživatelů s poskytovanými datovými propustnostmi. MEC lze využít nejen pro optimalizaci mobilních sítí z pohledu mobilních operátorů, ale taktéž uživateli mobilních sítí. Tito uživatelé mohou využít MEC pro přenost výpočetně náročných úloh z jejich mobilních zařízeních do MEC. Z důvodu mobility uživatel je nutné nalézt vhodně přidělení komunikačních a výpočetních prostředků pro uspokojení uživatelských požadavků. Tudíž je navržen algorithmus pro výběr komunikační cesty mezi uživatelem a MEC, jenž je posléze rozšířen o přidělování výpočetných prostředků společně s komunikačními prostředky. Navržené řešení vede k snížení komunikačního zpoždění o desítky procent.The convergence of communication and computing in the mobile networks has led to an introduction of the Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC). The MEC combines communication and computing resources at the edge of the mobile network and provides an option to optimize the mobile network in real-time. This is possible due to close proximity of the computation resources in terms of communication delay, in comparison to the Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). The optimization of the mobile networks requires information about the mobile network and User Equipment (UE). Such information, however, consumes a significant amount of communication resources. The finite communication resources along with the ever increasing number of the UEs and other devices, such as sensors, vehicles pose an obstacle for collecting the required information. Therefore, it is necessary to provide solutions to enable the collection of the required mobile network information from the UEs for the purposes of the mobile network optimization. In this thesis, a solution to enable communication of a large number of devices, exploiting Device-to-Device (D2D) communication for data relaying, is proposed. To motivate the UEs to relay data of other UEs, we propose a resource allocation algorithm that leads to a natural cooperation of the UEs. To show, that the relaying is not only beneficial from the perspective of an increased number of UEs, we provide an analysis of the energy consumed by the D2D communication. To further increase the number of the UEs we exploit a recent concept of the flying base stations (FlyBSs), and we develop a joint algorithm for a positioning of the FlyBS and an association of the UEs to increase the UEs satisfaction with the provided data rates. The MEC can be exploited not only for processing of the collected data to optimize the mobile networks, but also by the mobile users. The mobile users can exploit the MEC for the computation offloading, i.e., transferring the computation from their UEs to the MEC. However, due to the inherent mobility of the UEs, it is necessary to determine communication and computation resource allocation in order to satisfy the UEs requirements. Therefore, we first propose a solution for a selection of the communication path between the UEs and the MEC (communication resource allocation). Then, we also design an algorithm for joint communication and computation resource allocation. The proposed solution then lead to a reduction in the computation offloading delay by tens of percent

Workload allocation in mobile edge computing empowered internet of things

In the past few years, a tremendous number of smart devices and objects, such as smart phones, wearable devices, industrial and utility components, are equipped with sensors to sense the real-time physical information from the environment. Hence, Internet of Things (IoT) is introduced, where various smart devices are connected with each other via the internet and empowered with data analytics. Owing to the high volume and fast velocity of data streams generated by IoT devices, the cloud that can provision flexible and efficient computing resources is employed as a smart brain to process and store the big data generated from IoT devices. However, since the remote cloud is far from IoT users which send application requests and await the results generated by the data processing in the remote cloud, the response time of the requests may be too long, especially unbearable for delay sensitive IoT applications. Therefore, edge computing resources (e.g., cloudlets and fog nodes) which are close to IoT devices and IoT users can be employed to alleviate the traffic load in the core network and minimize the response time for IoT users. In edge computing, the communications latency critically affects the response time of IoT user requests. Owing to the dynamic distribution of IoT users (i.e., UEs), drone base station (DBS), which can be flexibly deployed for hotspot areas, can potentially improve the wireless latency of IoT users by mitigating the heavy traffic loads of macro BSs. Drone-based communications poses two major challenges: 1) the DBS should be deployed in suitable areas with heavy traffic demands to serve more UEs; 2) the traffic loads in the network should be allocated among macro BSs and DBSs to avoid instigating traffic congestions. Therefore, a TrAffic Load baLancing (TALL) scheme in such drone-assisted fog network is proposed to minimize the wireless latency of IoT users. In the scheme, the problem is decomposed into two sub-problems, two algorithms are designed to optimize the DBS placement and user association, respectively. Extensive simulations have been set up to validate the performance of the proposed scheme. Meanwhile, various IoT applications can be run in cloudlets to reduce the response time between IoT users (e.g., user equipments in mobile networks) and cloudlets. Considering the spatial and temporal dynamics of each application\u27s workloads among cloudlets, the workload allocation among cloudlets for each IoT application affects the response time of the application\u27s requests. To solve this problem, an Application awaRE workload Allocation (AREA) scheme for edge computing based IoT is designed to minimize the response time of IoT application requests by determining the destination cloudlets for each IoT user\u27s different types of requests and the amount of computing resources allocated for each application in each cloudlet. In this scheme, both the network delay and computing delay are taken into account, i.e., IoT users\u27 requests are more likely assigned to closer and lightly loaded cloudlets. The performance of the proposed scheme has been validated by extensive simulations. In addition, the latency of data flows in IoT devices consist of both the communications latency and computing latency. When some BSs and fog nodes are lightly loaded, other overloaded BSs and fog nodes may incur congestion. Thus, a workload balancing scheme in a fog network is proposed to minimize the latency of IoT data in the communications and processing procedures by associating IoT devices to suitable BSs. Furthermore, the convergence and the optimality of the proposed workload balancing scheme has been proved. Through extensive simulations, the performance of the proposed load balancing scheme is validated

Efficient and Secure Resource Allocation in Mobile Edge Computing Enabled Wireless Networks

To support emerging applications such as autonomous vehicles and smart homes and to build an intelligent society, the next-generation internet of things (IoT) is calling for up to 50 billion devices connected world wide. Massive devices connection, explosive data circulation, and colossal data processing demand are driving both the industry and academia to explore new solutions. Uploading this vast amount of data to the cloud center for processing will significantly increase the load on backbone networks and cause relatively long latency to time-sensitive applications. A practical solution is to deploy the computing resource closer to end-users to process the distributed data. Hence, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) emerged as a promising solution to providing high-speed data processing service with low latency. However, the implementation of MEC networks is handicapped by various challenges. For one thing, to serve massive IoT devices, dense deployment of edge servers will consume much more energy. For another, uploading sensitive user data through a wireless link intro-duces potential risks, especially for those size-limited IoT devices that cannot implement complicated encryption techniques. This dissertation investigates problems related to Energy Efficiency (EE) and Physical Layer Security (PLS) in MEC-enabled IoT networks and how Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), prediction-based server coordination, and Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) can be used to mitigate them. Employing a new spectrum access method can help achieve greater speed with less power consumption, therefore increasing system EE. We first investigated NOMA-assisted MEC networks and verified that the EE performance could be significantly improved. Idle servers can consume unnecessary power. Proactive server coordination can help relieve the tension of increased energy consumption in MEC systems. Our next step was to employ advanced machine learning algorithms to predict data workload at the server end and adaptively adjust the system configuration over time, thus reducing the accumulated system cost. We then introduced the PLS to our system and investigated the long-term secure EE performance of the MEC-enabled IoT network with NOMA assistance. It has shown that NOMA can improve both EE and PLS for the network. Finally, we switch from the single antenna scenario to a multiple-input single-output (MISO) system to exploit space diversity and beam forming techniques in mmWave communication. IRS can be used simultaneously to help relieve the pathloss and reconfigure multi-path links. In the final part, we first investigated the secure EE performance of IRS-assisted MISO networks and introduced a friendly jammer to block the eavesdroppers and improve the PLS rate. We then combined the IRS with the NOMA in the MEC network and showed that the IRS can further enhance the system EE

Towards green computing in wireless sensor networks: controlled mobility-aided balanced tree approach

Virtualization technology has revolutionized the mobile network and widely used in 5G innovation. It is a way of computing that allows dynamic leasing of server capabilities in the form of services like SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. The proliferation of these services among the users led to the establishment of large-scale cloud data centers that consume an enormous amount of electrical energy and results into high metered bill cost and carbon footprint. In this paper, we propose three heuristic models namely Median Migration Time (MeMT), Smallest Void Detection (SVD) and Maximum Fill (MF) that can reduce energy consumption with minimal variation in SLAs negotiated. Specifically, we derive the cost of running cloud data center, cost optimization problem and resource utilization optimization problem. Power consumption model is developed for cloud computing environment focusing on liner relationship between power consumption and resource utilization. A virtual machine migration technique is considered focusing on synchronization oriented shorter stop-and-copy phase. The complete operational steps as algorithms are developed for energy aware heuristic models including MeMT, SVD and MF. To evaluate proposed heuristic models, we conduct experimentations using PlanetLab server data often ten days and synthetic workload data collected randomly from the similar number of VMs employed in PlanetLab Servers. Through evaluation process, we deduce that proposed approaches can significantly reduce the energy consumption, total VM migration, and host shutdown while maintaining the high system performance