On-Cloud Linking Approach Using a Linkable Glue Layer for Metamorphic Edge Devices

Abstract

As sensors operating at the edge continue to evolve, the amount of data that edge devices need to process is increasing. Cloud computing methods have been proposed to process complex data on edge devices that are powered by limited resources. However, the existing cloud computing approach, which provides services from servers determined at the compile stage on the edge, is not suitable for the metamorphic edge device proposed in this paper. Therefore, we have realized the operation of metamorphic edge devices by changing the service that accelerates the application in real time according to the surrounding environmental conditions on the edge device. The on-cloud linking approach separates the code for communication from the edge and server into a linkable glue layer. The separated communication code in the linkable glue layer is reconfigured in real time according to the environment of the edge device. To verify the computational acceleration of cloud computing and the real-time service change of the metamorphic edge device, we operated services that perform matrix multiplication operations with one process, two processes, and four processes in parallel on the edge–cloud system based on the on-cloud linking approach. Through the experiments, it was confirmed that the on-cloud linking approach changes the service provided in real time according to changes in external environmental data without changing the code built into the edge. When a square matrix operation with 1000 rows was loaded onto the proposed platform, the size of the code embedded into the edge device decreased by 8.88% and the operation time decreased by 96.7%.