ENERDGE: Distributed Energy-Aware Resource Allocation at the Edge.

Mobile applications are progressively becoming more sophisticated and complex, increasing their computational requirements. Traditional offloading approaches that use exclusively the Cloud infrastructure are now deemed unsuitable due to the inherent associated delay. Edge Computing can address most of the Cloud limitations at the cost of limited available resources. This bottleneck necessitates an efficient allocation of offloaded tasks from the mobile devices to the Edge. In this paper, we consider a task offloading setting with applications of different characteristics and requirements, and propose an optimal resource allocation framework leveraging the amalgamation of the edge resources. To balance the trade-off between retaining low total energy consumption, respecting end-to-end delay requirements and load balancing at the Edge, we additionally introduce a Markov Random Field based mechanism for the distribution of the excess workload. The proposed approach investigates a realistic scenario, including different categories of mobile applications, edge devices with different computational capabilities, and dynamic wireless conditions modeled by the dynamic behavior and mobility of the users. The framework is complemented with a prediction mechanism that facilitates the orchestration of the physical resources. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is evaluated via modeling and simulation and is shown to outperform a well-known task offloading solution, as well as a more recent one.

Edge Computing Resource Allocation for Dynamic Networks: The DRUID-NET Vision and Perspective.

The potential offered by the abundance of sensors, actuators, and communications in the Internet of Things (IoT) era is hindered by the limited computational capacity of local nodes. Several key challenges should be addressed to optimally and jointly exploit the network, computing, and storage resources, guaranteeing at the same time feasibility for time-critical and mission-critical tasks. We propose the DRUID-NET framework to take upon these challenges by dynamically distributing resources when the demand is rapidly varying. It includes analytic dynamical modeling of the resources, offered workload, and networking environment, incorporating phenomena typically met in wireless communications and mobile edge computing, together with new estimators of time-varying profiles. Building on this framework, we aim to develop novel resource allocation mechanisms that explicitly include service differentiation and context-awareness, being capable of guaranteeing well-defined Quality of Service (QoS) metrics. DRUID-NET goes beyond the state of the art in the design of control algorithms by incorporating resource allocation mechanisms to the decision strategy itself. To achieve these breakthroughs, we combine tools from Automata and Graph theory, Machine Learning, Modern Control Theory, and Network Theory. DRUID-NET constitutes the first truly holistic, multidisciplinary approach that extends recent, albeit fragmented results from all aforementioned fields, thus bridging the gap between efforts of different communities.

Where There Is Fire There Is SMOKE: A Scalable Edge Computing Framework for Early Fire Detection.

A Cyber-Physical Social System (CPSS) tightly integrates computer systems with the physical world and human activities. In this article, a three-level CPSS for early fire detection is presented to assist public authorities to promptly identify and act on emergency situations. At the bottom level, the system's architecture involves IoT nodes enabled with sensing and forest monitoring capabilities. Additionally, in this level, the crowd sensing paradigm is exploited to aggregate environmental information collected by end user devices present in the area of interest. Since the IoT nodes suffer from limited computational energy resources, an Edge Computing Infrastructure, at the middle level, facilitates the offloaded data processing regarding possible fire incidents. At the top level, a decision-making service deployed on Cloud nodes integrates data from various sources, including users' information on social media, and evaluates the situation criticality. In our work, a dynamic resource scaling mechanism for the Edge Computing Infrastructure is designed to address the demanding Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of this IoT-enabled time and mission critical application. The experimental results indicate that the vertical and horizontal scaling on the Edge Computing layer is beneficial for both the performance and the energy consumption of the IoT nodes.