An energy-efficient task scheduling for mobile devices based on cloud assistant

Mobile cloud computing is an emerging service model to extend the capability and the battery life of mobile devices. Mostly one network application can be decomposed into fine-grained tasks which consist of sequential tasks and parallel tasks. With the assistance of mobile cloud computing, some tasks could be offloaded to the cloud for speeding up executions and saving energy. However, the task offloading results in some additional cost during the communication between cloud and mobile devices. Therefore, this paper proposes an energy-efficient scheduling of tasks, in which the mobile device offloads appropriate tasks to the cloud via a Wi-Fi access point. The scheduling aims to minimize the energy consumption of mobile device for one application under the constraint of total completion time. This task scheduling problem is reconstructed into a constrained shortest path problem and the LARAC method is applied to get the approximate optimal solution. The proposed energy-efficient strategy decreases 81.93% of energy consumption and 25.70% of time at most, compared with the local strategy. Moreover, the applicability and performance of the proposed strategy are verified in different patterns of applications, where the time constraint, the workload ratio between communication and computation are various.     

基于延迟接受的多用户任务卸载策略

随着人工智能的应用对计算资源的要求越来越高,移动设备由于计算能力和存储能量有限而无法处理这类有实时性需求的计算密集型应用.移动边缘计算(Mobile Edge Computing,MEC)可以在无线网络边缘提供计算卸载服务,达到缩短时延和节约能源的目的.针对多用户依赖任务卸载问题,在综合考虑时延与能耗的基础上建立用户依...     

Design and energy-efficient resource management of virtualized networked Fog architectures for the real-time support of IoT applications

With the incoming 5G access networks, it is forecasted that Fog computing (FC) and Internet of Things (IoT) will converge onto the Fog-of-IoT paradigm. Since the FC paradigm spreads, by design, networking and computing resources over the wireless access network, it would enable the support of computing-intensive and delay-sensitive streaming applications under the energy-limited wireless IoT realm. Motivated by this consideration, the goal of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a motivating study the main “killer” application areas envisioned for the considered Fog-of-IoT paradigm. Second, it presents the design of a CoNtainer-based virtualized networked computing architecture. The proposed architecture operates at the Middleware layer and exploits the native capability of the Container Engines, so as to allow the dynamic real-time scaling of the available computing-plus-networking virtualized resources. Third, the paper presents a low-complexity penalty-aware bin packing-type heuristic for the dynamic management of the resulting virtualized computing-plus-networking resources. The proposed heuristic pursues the joint minimization of the networking-plus-computing energy by adaptively scaling up/down the processing speeds of the virtual processors and transport throughputs of the instantiated TCP/IP virtual connections, while guaranteeing hard (i.e., deterministic) upper bounds on the per-task computing-plus-networking delays. Finally, the actual energy performance-versus-implementation complexity trade-off of the proposed resource manager is numerically tested under both wireless static and mobile Fog-of-IoT scenarios and comparisons against the corresponding performances of some state-of-the-art benchmark resource managers and device-to-device edge computing platforms are also carried out.     

Application Security Models for Mobile Agent Systems

Mobile agents are a distributed computing paradigm based on mobile autonomous programs. Mobile applications must balance security requirements with available security mechanisms in order to meet application level security goals. We introduce a trust framework to reason about application security requirements, trust expression, and agent protection mechanisms. We develop application security models that capture initial trust relationships and consider their use for mobile agent security.     

An efficient dynamic decision-based task optimization and scheduling approach for microservice-based cost management in mobile cloud computing applications

The use of smartphones and mobile devices has increased significantly, as have Mobile Cloud Applications based on cloud computing. These applications are used in various fields, including Augmented Reality, E-Transportation, 2D/3-D Games, E-Healthcare, and Education. While existing cloud-based frameworks provide such services on Virtual Machines, they incur problems such as overhead, lengthy boot time, and high costs. To address these issues, the paper proposes a Dynamic Decision-Based Task Scheduling Approach for Microservice-based Mobile Cloud Computing Applications (MSCMCC) that can run delay-sensitive applications and mobility with less cost than existing approaches. The study focuses on Task Offloading problems on heterogeneous Mobile Cloud servers. It proposes a Task Offloading and Microservices based Computational Offloading (TSMCO) framework to solve Task Scheduling in steps such as Resource Matching, Task Sequencing, and Task Offloading. Experimental results show that the proposed MSCMCC and TSMCO enhance Mobile Server Utilization while minimizing costs and improving boot time, resource utilization, and task arrival time for various applications. Specifically, the proposed system effectively reduces the cost of healthcare applications by 25%, augmented reality by 23%, E-Transport tasks by 21%, and 3-D games tasks by 19%, the average boot-time of microservices applications by 17%, resource utilization by 36%, and tasks arrival time by 16%.     

MobiByte: An Application Development Model for Mobile Cloud Computing

Mobile cloud computing presents an effective solution to overcome smartphone constraints, such as limited computational power, storage, and energy. As the traditional mobile application development models do not support computation offloading, mobile cloud computing requires novel application development models that can facilitate the development of cloud enabled mobile applications. This paper presents a mobile cloud application development model, named MobiByte, to enhance mobile device applications’ performance, energy efficiency, and execution support. MobiByte is a context-aware application model that uses multiple data offloading techniques to support a wide range of applications. The proposed model is validated using prototype applications and detailed results are presented. Moreover, MobiByte is compared with the most recent application models with a conclusion that it outperforms the existing application models in many aspects like energy efficiency, performance, generality, context awareness, and privacy.     

基于DDPG的边缘计算任务卸载和服务缓存算法

当计算任务被转移到移动边缘计算（MEC）服务器上时,通过服务缓存能够降低获取和初始化服务应用程序的实时时延和带宽成本。此外,体验质量是驱动卸载决策的关键因素,有效利用有限的计算资源能够提升用户满意度。考虑一个边缘服务器帮助移动用户执行一系列计算任务的场景,建立混合整数非线性规划问题,提出一种基于深度确定性策略梯度（DDPG）的算法来联合优化服务缓存位置、计算卸载决策和资源分配,从而提高用户对服务的体验质量,最大化用户使用计算资源所节约的成本。仿真结果表明,该算法在提高用户体验质量和节约成本方面较使用无缓存策略、随机选择策略和无缓存随机选择策略的算法性能更优。     

Integrating mobile agents into the mobile middleware

Mobile agents are a new paradigm for distributed computing that is especially well suited for mobile computing over global wireless networks. This paper describes the approach taken in the ACTS On TheMove project to integrate a mobile agent system into the Mobile Application Support Environment (MASE), a middleware for mobile computing. In this project, an existing mobile agent system was adapted for the requirements of mobile computing. We present the changes that had to be made to the agent system to adapt it to the wireless communication. We also present some of the application areas where a mobile agent system is suitable for mobile communication. We describe an agent based pre-fetcher application where an agent operaes disconnected from the user on the fixed network and prepares web pages for the anticipated next connection of the user using the Quality-of-Service trading functions available in MASE.     

MIFaaS: A Mobile-IoT-Federation-as-a-Service Model for dynamic cooperation of IoT Cloud Providers

In the Internet of Things (IoT) arena, a constant evolution is observed towards the deployment of integrated environments, wherein heterogeneous devices pool their capacities to match wide-ranging user requirements. Solutions for efficient and synergistic cooperation among objects are, therefore, required. This paper suggests a novel paradigm to support dynamic cooperation among private/public local clouds of IoT devices. Differently from device-oriented approaches typical of Mobile Cloud Computing, the proposed paradigm envisages an IoT Cloud Provider (ICP)-oriented cooperation, which allows all devices belonging to the same private/public owner to participate in the federation process. Expected result from dynamic federations among ICPs is a remarkable increase in the amount of service requests being satisfied. Different from the Fog Computing vision, the network edge provides only management support and supervision to the proposed Mobile-IoT-Federation-as-a-Service (MIFaaS), thus reducing the deployment cost of peripheral micro data centers. The paper proposes a coalition formation game to account for the interest of rational cooperative ICPs in their own payoff. A proof-of-concept performance evaluation confirms that obtained coalition structures not only guarantee the satisfaction of the players’ requirements according to their utility function, but also these introduce significant benefits for the cooperating ICPs in terms of number of tasks being successfully assigned.     

Efficient handover authentication with user anonymity and untraceability for Mobile Cloud Computing

Various wireless communication technologies have been generated and deployed on account of mass requirements. These enable cloud computing with integration with mobility and Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) becomes the trend of future generation computing paradigm. In this paper, we address a challenging issue of MCC technology—security and privacy of the handover process. We propose a new design of handoff authentication for heterogeneous mobile cloud networks, which provides user anonymity and untraceability. Compared with previous protocols, our proposed mechanism achieves comprehensive features of universality, robust security and efficiency.     

Challenges in real-time virtualization and predictable cloud computing

Cloud computing and virtualization technology have revolutionized general-purpose computing applications in the past decade. The cloud paradigm offers advantages through reduction of operation costs, server consolidation, flexible system configuration and elastic resource provisioning. However, despite the success of cloud computing for general-purpose computing, existing cloud computing and virtualization technology face tremendous challenges in supporting emerging soft real-time applications such as online video streaming, cloud-based gaming, and telecommunication management. These applications demand real-time performance in open, shared and virtualized computing environments. This paper identifies the technical challenges in supporting real-time applications in the cloud, surveys recent advancement in real-time virtualization and cloud computing technology, and offers research directions to enable cloud-based real-time applications in the future.     

An energy-efficient scheduling scheme for time-constrained tasks in local mobile clouds

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) enables mobile devices to use resource providers other than mobile devices themselves to host the execution of mobile applications. Various mobile cloud architectures and scheduling algorithms have been studied recently. However, how to utilize MCC to enable mobile devices to run complex real-time applications while keeping high energy efficiency remains a challenge. In this paper, firstly, we introduce the local mobile clouds formed by nearby mobile devices and give the mathematical models of the mobile devices and their applications. Secondly, we formulate the scheduling problem in local mobile clouds. After describing the resource discovery scheme and the adaptive, probabilistic scheduling algorithm, we finally validate the performance of the proposed algorithm by simulation experiments.     

JETS: Language and System Support for Many-Parallel-Task Workflows

Many-task computing is a well-established paradigm for implementing loosely coupled applications (tasks) on large-scale computing systems. However, few of the model’s existing implementations provide efficient, low-latency support for executing tasks that are tightly coupled multiprocessing applications. Thus, a vast array of parallel applications cannot readily be used effectively within many-task workloads. In this work, we present JETS, a middleware component that provides high performance support for many-parallel-task computing (MPTC). JETS is based on a highly concurrent approach to parallel task dispatch and on new capabilities now available in the MPICH2 MPI implementation and the ZeptoOS Linux operating system. JETS represents an advance over the few known examples of multilevel many-parallel-task scheduling systems: it more efficiently schedules and launches many short-duration parallel application invocations; it overcomes the challenges of coupling the user processes of each multiprocessing application invocation via the messaging fabric; and it concurrently manages many application executions in various stages. We report here on the JETS architecture and its performance on both synthetic benchmarks and an MPTC application in molecular dynamics.     

Leveraging Microsoft׳s mobile usability guidelines: Conceptualizing and developing scales for mobile application usability

This research conceptualizes mobile application usability and develops and validates an instrument to measure the same. Mobile application usability has attracted widespread attention in the field of human–computer interaction because well-designed applications can enhance user experiences. To conceptualize mobile application usability, we analyzed Microsoft’s mobile usability guidelines and defined 10 constructs representing mobile application usability. Next, we conducted a pilot study followed by a quantitative assessment of the content validity of the scales. We then sequentially applied exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to two samples (n=404; n=501) consisting of German consumers using mobile social media applications on their smartphones. To evaluate the confirmatory factor model, we followed a step-by-step process assessing unidimensionality, discriminant validity and reliability. To assess the nomological validity of our instrument, we examined the impact of mobile application usability on two outcomes: continued intention to use and brand loyalty. The results confirmed that mobile application usability was a good predictor of both outcomes. The constructs and scales associated with mobile application usability validated in this paper can be used to guide future research in human–computer interaction and aid in the effective design of mobile applications.     

移动Agent系统中的安全问题和技术研究综述

移动Agent是分布式计算领域中一种新的计算模式。由于其在异步性、自治性以及移动性等方面的优势,移动Agent技术应用范围日益广泛,而随之而来的系统安全性问题也日益突出。拳文对移动Agent系统中的主要安全威胁做了细致的分析;在此基础上,从主机和Agent两技术方面以及社会角度总结了目前主要存在的安全保障措施;描述并比较了几种具代表性的移动Agent系统及各自的安全实现机制。     

针对移动云计算任务迁移的快速高效调度算法

计算量较大的应用程序由于需要大量的能耗,因此在电池容量有限的移动设备上运行时十分受限。云计算迁移技术是保证此类应用程序在资源有限的设备上运行的主流方法。针对无线网络中应用程序任务图的调度和迁移问题,提出了一种快速高效的启发式算法。该算法将能够迁移到云端的任务都安排在云端完成这种策略作为初始解,通过逐次计算可迁移任务在移动端运行的能耗节省量,依次将节省量最大的任务迁移到移动端,并依据任务间的通讯时间及时更新各个任务的能耗节省量。为了寻找全局最优解,构造了适用于此问题的禁忌搜索算法,给出了相应的编码方法、禁忌表、邻域解以及算法终止准则。构造的禁忌搜索算法以提出的启发式解为初始解进行全局搜索,并实现对启发解的进一步优化。通过 实验 将所提方法与无迁移、随机迁移、饱和迁移3类算法进行对比,结果表明提出的启发式算法能够快速有效地给出能耗更小的解。例如,在宽度为10的任务图上,当深度为8时,无迁移、随机迁移与饱和迁移的能耗分别为5461、3357和2271能量单位,而给出的启发解对应的能耗仅为2111。在此基础上禁忌搜索算法又将其能耗降低到1942, 这进一步说明了提出的启发式算法能够产生高质量的近似解。     

移动云计算环境下任务调度的多目标优化方法

移动云计算技术可帮助移动用户在执行工作流任务时将一些任务迁移至云端服务器执行,从而节省移动设备的电池能耗,并提高计算能力.传统研究工作在进行移动云计算环境中的任务调度时缺乏对能耗和运行时间的联合优化.为了实现有效的任务调度,基于工作流图中任务执行的先后关系,分析了采用动态电压频率调节技术的移动设备处理器执行工作流任务的运行时间与能耗,并考虑了将任务通过无线信道迁移到云端服务器执行所需的时间,给出了能耗与执行时间联合优化的任务调度模型和目标方程.提出基于模拟退火算法的任务调度方法,分析了算法时间复杂度,进行了系统性的对比实验,评估了所提出方法的正确性和有效性.     

Joint optimization method for task scheduling time and energy consumption in mobile cloud computing environment

An unheard of growth in mobile data traffic has drawn attention from academia and industry. Mobile cloud computing is an emerging computing paradigm combining cloud computing and mobile networks to alleviate resource-constrained limitations of mobile devices, which can greatly improve network quality of service and efficiency to make good use of available network resource. Mobile cloud computing not only inherits the advantages of strong computing capacity and massive storage of cloud computing, but also overcomes the time and geographical restrictions, bringing benefits for mobile users to offload complex computation to powerful cloud servers for execution anytime and anywhere. To this end, an optimal task workflow scheduling scheme is proposed for the mobile devices, based on the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling technique and the whale optimization algorithm. Through considering three factors: task execution position, task execution sequence, and operating voltage and frequency of mobile devices, this study makes a tradeoff between performance and energy consumption by solving the joint optimization for task completion time and energy consumption simultaneously. Finally, a series of extensive simulation results has demonstrated and verified the scheme has distinguished performance in terms of efficiency and operational cost, providing feasible solutions to similar optimization problems of mobile cloud computing.     

车辆边缘计算环境下任务卸载研究综述

计算密集和延迟敏感型车辆应用的出现对车辆设备有限的计算能力提出了严峻的挑战,将任务卸载到传统的云平台会有较大的传输延迟,而移动边缘计算专注于将计算资源转移到网络的边缘,为移动设备提供高性能、低延迟的服务,因此可作为处理计算密集和延迟敏感的任务的一种有效方法.同时,鉴于城市地区拥有大量智能网联车辆,将闲置的车辆计算资源充分利用起来可以提供巨大的资源和价值,因此在车联网场景下,结合移动边缘计算产生了新的计算模式——车辆边缘计算.近年来,智能网联车辆数量的增长和新兴车辆应用的出现促进了对车辆边缘计算环境下任务卸载的研究,本文对现有车辆边缘计算环境下任务卸载研究进展进行综述,首先,从计算模型、任务模型和通信模型三个方面对系统模型进行梳理、比较和分析.然后介绍了最小化卸载延迟、最小化能量消耗和应用结果质量三种常见的优化目标,并按照集中式和分布式两种不同的决策方式对现有的研究进行了详细的归类和比较.此外,本文还介绍了几种常用的实验工具,包括SUMO、Veins和VeinsLTE.最后,本文围绕卸载决策算法复杂度、安全与隐私保护和车辆移动性等方面对车辆边缘计算任务卸载目前面临的挑战进行了总结,并展望了车辆边缘计算环境下任务卸载未来的发展方向与前景.