VM Migration in Mobile Edge Computing for QoS Improvement with Wireless Multi-Hop Access Networks

Abstract

Quality of Service (QoS) applications running in an edge node of mobile edge computing (MEC) could degrade due to congestion of wireless access or shortage of mobile edge computing resources. To improve QoS, such as TCP throughput, we propose a virtual machine (VM) migration method, which takes a VM from a congested node to another node in a mobile edge. We also propose an approach in which a wireless LAN access point (AP) is employed as an edge of the MEC to obtain high throughput in the VM migration method. More specifically, a VM is migrated to an edge node either at a cellular base station (BS) site or at a wireless LAN AP site depending on the estimated throughput. When the physical distance between a user device and a new edge node is large, a multi-hop ad hoc network is utilized between them. In this case, throughput is affected by background traffic yielded by relay devices. Evaluation models that have a number of TCP connections as background traffic will be used to investigate the throughput before and after the VM migration. Users can choose whether to continue communications with a near but congested node or to conduct a VM migration to a far but less congested node. The evaluation results show that a VM migration to an edge server at a BS site could improve TCP throughput by more than 60%, even when the relay devices emit a few TCP connections. Moreover, a VM migration to an AP site can improve TCP throughput by more than 80%, even when the relay devices emit 2 TCP connections.