Application-aware cloudlet selection for computation offloading in multi-cloudlet environment

Latency- and power-aware offloading is a promising issue in the field of mobile cloud computing today. To provide latency-aware offloading, the concept of cloudlet has evolved. However, offloading an application to the most appropriate cloudlet is still a major challenge. This paper has proposed an application-aware cloudlet selection strategy for multi-cloudlet scenario. Different cloudlets are able to process different types of applications. When a request comes from a mobile device for offloading a task, the application type is verified first. According to the application type, the most suitable cloudlet is selected among multiple cloudlets present near the mobile device. By offloading computation using the proposed strategy, the energy consumption of mobile terminals can be reduced as well as latency in application execution can be decreased. Moreover, the proposed strategy can balance the load of the system by distributing the processes to be offloaded in various cloudlets. Consequently, the probability of putting all loads on a single cloudlet can be dealt for load balancing. The proposed algorithm is implemented in the mobile cloud computing laboratory of our university. In the experimental analyses, the sorting and searching processes, numerical operations, game and web service are considered as the tasks to be offloaded to the cloudlets based on the application type. The delays involved in offloading various applications to the cloudlets located at the university laboratory, using proposed algorithm are presented. The mathematical models of total power consumption and delay for the proposed strategy are also developed in this paper.