Container-Based Fast Service Migration Method for Mobile Edge Computing

Abstract

Mobile edge computing (MEC) provides users with low-latency, high-bandwidth, and high-reliability services by migrating the computing power of the cloud computing center to the edge of the network. It is thus being considered an effective solution for the contradiction between the limited computing capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the rapid development of delay-sensitive real-time applications. In this study, we propose and design a container union file system based on the differencing hard disk and dynamic loading strategy to address the excessively long migration time caused by the bundling transmission of the file system and container images during container-based service migration. The proposed method involves designing a mechanism based on a remote dynamic loading strategy to avoid the downloading of all container images, thereby reducing the long preparation time before which stateless migration can begin. Furthermore, in view of the excessive latency of the edge service during the stateful migration process, a strategy for avoiding the transmission of the underlying file system and container images is designed to optimize the service interruption time and service quality degradation time. Experiments show that the proposed method and strategy can effectively reduce the migration time of container-based services.