Optimal Task Assignment for Integrated Cloud and Edge Networks With Tree Topology

Abstract

The rapid growth of mobile applications and the Internet of Things generates a huge amount of data that can hardly be processed by end devices. Recently, Integrated Cloud and Edge (ICE) networks have been proposed to support smart applications and services by leveraging both remote clouds and edge clusters. However, task assignment over ICE networks has been proved NP-hard, which makes it challenging in practice. In this work, we discover that a polynomial-time optimal solution does exist for the task assignment problem when the ICE network is organized with tree topology. Specifically, the studied problem for the ICE network with tree topology is transformed into an equivalent graph optimization problem. Theoretical analysis is then provided to find the polynomial-time optimal solution. Evaluation results demonstrate the correctness and efficiency of the discovered solution.