Improved ACO Inspired Service Functions Detection over Edge Computing Scenarios

Abstract

The edge computing has become an important pattern to deal with novel service scenarios of Internet of Everything (IoE), especially when different kinds of service requests from edge equipment are increasing rapidly. However, it is still a great challenge to satisfy the delay-sensitive demand of edge equipment, so as to minimize the service provision delay. In this paper, the mechanism of service functions detection among multiple Edge Computing Servers (ECSs) is proposed. By integrating Virtualized Service Functions (VSFs) and edge computing pattern, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is improved to adapt to the situation that service requests may frequently change from different edge network domains. Based on the improved ACO, the approach of searching for the deployed locations (i.e., ECSs) of the requested service functions is devised, thus, the service searching delay is optimized. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism is feasible and effective.