Dynamic network-aware container allocation in Cloud/Fog computing with mobile nodes

Abstract

The massive adoption of movable devices, created a new use cases such as Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, spacecraft computing, etc. Not only end users, but also computing infrastructures can change their location. The applications are composed of many interdependent microservices with specific resource requirements. Latest state of the art in Cloud/Fog infrastructures is considering only the computational and network (latency, bandwidth) resources during scheduling of microservices, but in a static way. The network variability when the nodes are moving in space is not considered. This leads to increased total latency, hindering the Quality of Service (QoS) and network costs. Many researchers are focused only on a theoretical level. This paper proposes a novel technique for network-aware dynamic allocation of interdependent microservices on moving infrastructure nodes, applicable in practice. It is composed of a generic MILP optimization model and implementation in a Cloud/Fog platform. Several examples with sample Edge-Native application are obtained. The results show reduction in the total end-to-end network latency compared to the latest state of the art.