TY - GEN
T1 - SFC-Enabled Reliable Service Provisioning in Mobile Edge Computing via Digital Twins
AU - Li, Jing
AU - Guo, Song
AU - Liang, Weifa
AU - Chen, Quan
AU - Xu, Zichuan
AU - Xu, Wenzheng
N1 - Full text of this publication does not contain sufficient affiliation information. With consent from the author(s) concerned, the Research Unit(s) information for this record is based on the existing academic department affiliation of the author(s).
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm emerges as a promising technology to provide services for various mobile applications at edges of core networks while meeting stringent service delay requirements of users. Orthogonal with the MEC, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) provides the network resource management with flexibility and scalability, where Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) are deployed over edge servers in a chained manner as Service Function Chains (SFCs) for enabling service applications. Provisioning reliable SFC-enabled services in MEC thus is fundamentally important. However, the VNF instances deployed usually are not reliable and affected by multiple factors, including the software implementation, the request execution duration, and so on. Empowered by digital twin techniques that can maintain the states of VNF instances by digital twins in a real-time manner and predict the reliability of VNF instances in edge servers, in this paper we study SFC-enabled reliable service provisioning in an MEC network by exploring the dynamics of VNF instance placement reliability. We first formulate a novel SFC-enabled reliable service problem in MEC networks - the online throughput maximization problem, and show its NP-hardness. We then propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) solution to the offline version of the problem, and develop an online algorithm with a provable competitive ratio for the problem. We finally evaluated the performance of the proposed algorithm through experimental simulations, and the results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is promising.
AB - The Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm emerges as a promising technology to provide services for various mobile applications at edges of core networks while meeting stringent service delay requirements of users. Orthogonal with the MEC, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) provides the network resource management with flexibility and scalability, where Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) are deployed over edge servers in a chained manner as Service Function Chains (SFCs) for enabling service applications. Provisioning reliable SFC-enabled services in MEC thus is fundamentally important. However, the VNF instances deployed usually are not reliable and affected by multiple factors, including the software implementation, the request execution duration, and so on. Empowered by digital twin techniques that can maintain the states of VNF instances by digital twins in a real-time manner and predict the reliability of VNF instances in edge servers, in this paper we study SFC-enabled reliable service provisioning in an MEC network by exploring the dynamics of VNF instance placement reliability. We first formulate a novel SFC-enabled reliable service problem in MEC networks - the online throughput maximization problem, and show its NP-hardness. We then propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) solution to the offline version of the problem, and develop an online algorithm with a provable competitive ratio for the problem. We finally evaluated the performance of the proposed algorithm through experimental simulations, and the results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is promising.
KW - Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Virtual Network Function (VNF), Service Function Chain (SFC), reliability aware service provisioning, online algorithm
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146115142&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85146115142&origin=recordpage
U2 - 10.1109/MASS56207.2022.00052
DO - 10.1109/MASS56207.2022.00052
M3 - RGC 32 - Refereed conference paper (with host publication)
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE 19th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Smart Systems, MASS
SP - 311
EP - 317
BT - Proceedings - 2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Smart Systems (MASS 2022)
PB - IEEE
T2 - 19th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Smart Systems, MASS 2022
Y2 - 20 October 2022 through 22 October 2022
ER -