Addressing response time of cloud-based mobile applications

Abstract

With more mobile applications being developed to take advantage of the elastic cloud computing resources instead of restricting to native mobile device resources, this paper investigates a timely question: is there any fundamental challenge that needs to be overcome to enable cloud-based mobile applications? We show that using cloud resources makes applications highly interactive and real-time, making low response time a key requirement for satisfactory user experience. Using two promising Cloud Mobile applications, Cloud Mobile Gaming (CMG) and Cloud Mobile Desktop (CMD), we demonstrate that meeting response time requirements can be a significant challenge. We show why existing Internet PC based solutions for delay and response time management may not be adequate to address the response time challenge of Cloud Mobile applications. We describe response time management techniques that have been recently developed for Cloud Mobile applications, and propose new directions, including developing Mobile Network Clouds, and Mobile Cloud Scheduling, as ways to address the response time challenge of Cloud Mobile applications.