Cheating-Resilient Bandwidth Distribution in Mobile Cloud Computing

Abstract

In mobile cloud computing (MCC), optimal utilization of resources (e.g., bandwidth), while maintaining the required level of quality-of-services (QoS), is essential. A user participating in the resource allocation process can provide untruthful information for acquiring undue advantages with respect to the allocated resource amount, and the cost incurred. In this paper, we identify, formulate, and address the problem of such misbehaviour. We formulate the bandwidth distribution as a constrained convex utility maximization problem, and solve it using the proposed cheating-resilient bandwidth distribution (CRAB) scheme. Numerical analysis shows that, in CRAB, the misbehaving user is impelled to behave normally as the misbehaviour increases its own cost while the other users including the cloud service provider (CSP) get benefit in terms of revenue. We investigate the existence of Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the proposed scheme. Both the problem and the solution are extensively analysed theoretically. The maximum and minimum selling prices of bandwidth, and the optimal solution for individual user are computed using the method of Lagrange multiplier.