ECSim++: An INET-Based Simulation Tool for Modeling and Control in Edge Cloud Computing

Abstract

As the overwhelming growth of smart devices and massive arrival of new application, network traffic volume has been growing rapidly. The traditional centralized network architecture, such as locating services at core cloud, causes a heavy burden on the backhaul link and long latency. Edge Cloud Computing has been introduced to reduce traffic bottlenecks in the core, backhaul network and service delay by pushing data intensive tasks towards the edge and locally processing data in proximity to the users. This paper introduces a new simulation framework, so-called ECSim++, based on the OMNeT++ simulator [15] and INET framework [2] to enable exploration of computing, caching, communication or energy efficiency related issues in Edge Cloud Computing. ECSim++ is designed not only to allow researchers to customize caching protocols, edge services, but also to analyze, debug and evaluate easily for Edge Cloud Computing environment. In addition, ECSim++ also provides an energy consumption model so that researchers could deploy and evaluate their energy strategies.