A migration-enhanced edge computing support for mobile devices in hostile environments

First research activities are starting to recognize the suitability of edge computing approaches in several Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) application domains, for instance, to better address scalability issues and to improve reactivity via local control decisions and actuation. The paper originally proposes the design and implementation of an extended edge computing platform, specifically designed for the support of mobile services when provisioned in so-called hostile environments. In particular, our original platform is capable of proactive migration of virtualized functions in response to provision-time device mobility. The paper provides a practical contribution in terms of design and implementation of proactive migration as an extension of the Elijah platform, available for the community of researchers/practitioners in the field. In addition, the paper contributes with lessons learnt from deployment and experimentation, including experimental results about the performance achievable when adopting simple but effective strategies for proactive migration.