Energy-Aware Collaborative Service Caching in a 5G-Enabled MEC With Uncertain Payoffs

Abstract

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is an enabling technology for low-latency AI applications, by caching AI services originally deployed in remote data centers to 5G base stations in network edge. Due to limited computing resource of 5G base stations, not all services can be cached in base stations to meet the resource demands of user requests. Also, if the workload of a 5G base station reaches to its resource capacity, the energy consumption of the base station will be pushed up exponentially. To reduce the energy consumption and overcome resource limitations on base stations, an alternative is to allow the base stations to collaborate with each other to admit user requests. In this paper, we investigate the problem of collaborative service caching and request offloading between a 5G-enabled MEC and remote data centers, while meeting the quality of service (QoS) requirements of users, and resource capacities on base stations that are operated by multiple selfish network service providers. We aim to maximize the total payoff of all base stations. To this end, we first propose a two-stage optimization framework: In the first stage, we develop a mechanism that adopts a best-reply rule for dynamically distributed coalition formation. In the second stage, we propose a near-optimal payoff allocation method by devising a randomized algorithm with a provable approximation ratio. We then evaluate the performance of the proposed optimization framework by extensive experimental simulations. Simulation results show that the proposed framework outperforms its counterparts by achieving at least 30% higher payoff and 20% lower energy consumption of base stations.