Follow-Me Cloud: When Cloud Services Follow Mobile Users

TL;DR

Follow-Me Cloud (FMC) enables mobile users to seamlessly access cloud services by dynamically migrating services to optimal locations, improving user experience and resource efficiency through innovative algorithms and protocols.

Contribution

The paper introduces FMC, a novel framework that allows cloud services to follow mobile users using cost-effective migration algorithms and multiple continuity schemes.

Findings

FMC reduces service disruption during user mobility.

Testbed experiments validate the effectiveness of FMC implementations.

Numerical analysis shows improved performance and cost savings.

Abstract

The trend towards the cloudification of the 3GPP LTE mobile network architecture and the emergence of federated cloud infrastructures call for alternative service delivery strategies for improved user experience and efficient resource utilization. We propose Follow-Me Cloud (FMC), a design tailored to this environment, but with a broader applicability, which allows mobile users to always be connected via the optimal data anchor and mobility gateways, while cloud-based services follow them and are delivered via the optimal service point inside the cloud infrastructure. FMC applies a Markov-Decision-Process-based algorithm for cost-effective, performance-optimized service migration decisions, while two alternative schemes to ensure service continuity and disruption-free operation are proposed, based on either Software Defined Networking technologies or the Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol. Numerical results from our analytic model for FMC, as well as testbed experiments with the two alternative FMC implementations we have developed, demonstrate quantitatively and qualitatively the advantages it can bring about.