A collaborative mobile edge computing and user solution for service composition in 5G systems

Abstract

AbstractMobile edge computing (MEC) is an emergent technology that has revolutionized traditional cloud service solutions. Mobile edge computing extends cloud computing by providing processing, storage, and networking capabilities at the edge of the mobile network. Delay‐sensitive and context‐aware applications are able to execute within close proximity of mobile users. Additionally, today's cloud services are not tailored to user specifications, but rather diversified toward a group of users. To guarantee delivery of user‐specific services in 5G networks, service composition techniques should be incorporated. This article envisions a real‐time, context‐aware, service‐composition collaborative framework that lies at the edge of the network, comprising MEC and user devices for fast composite service delivery. The proposed solution decomposes cloud data into a set of files and services, which are then replicated to MEC nodes. Frequently requested files and services are further cached onto user mobile devices for faster access. Both MEC nodes and mobile users advertise their services onto the collaborative edge/user space, where services are delivered either composite or unrendered according to users' requests. Service composition is achieved through a learning‐based workflow‐net approach that relies on previous composition results to build service composition models to be used for new compositions. The presented solution provides guaranteed and fast delivery of the requested cloud composite services to end users while sustaining QoS requirements and load balancing among edge and mobile nodes.