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Edge computing: A survey

Article  in  Future Generation Computer Systems · February 2019

DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2019.02.050

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 Edge Computing: A Survey
Wazir Zada Khana , Ejaz Ahmedb , Saqib Hakakb , Ibrar Yaqoobc , Arif Ahmedd
a
Farasan Networking Research Laboratory, Faculty of CS & IS, Jazan University,Jazan, Saudi Arabia.
b
Centre for Mobile Cloud Computing Research (C4MCCR), Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
c
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin-si 17104, South Korea.
d
University Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA, F-35000 Rennes.

Abstract
In recent years, the Edge computing paradigm has gained considerable popularity in academic
and industrial circles. It serves as a key enabler for many future technologies like 5G, Internet of
Things (IoT), augmented reality and vehicle-to-vehicle communications by connecting cloud com-
puting facilities and services to the end users. The Edge computing paradigm provides low latency,
mobility, and location awareness support to delay-sensitive applications. Significant research has
been carried out in the area of Edge computing, which is reviewed in terms of latest developments
such as Mobile Edge Computing, Cloudlet, and Fog computing, resulting in providing researchers
with more insight into the existing solutions and future applications. This article is meant to serve
as a comprehensive survey of recent advancements in Edge computing highlighting the core appli-
cations. It also discusses the importance of Edge computing in real life scenarios where response
time constitutes the fundamental requirement for many applications. The article concludes with
identifying the requirements and discuss open research challenges in Edge computing.
Keywords: Mobile Edge computing, Edge computing, Cloudlets, Fog computing, Micro Clouds,
Cloud computing.

1. Introduction
Edge computing constitutes a new concept in the computing landscape. It brings the service
and utilities of cloud computing closer to the end user and is characterized by fast processing
and quick application response time. The currently developed internet-enabled applications such
as surveillance, virtual reality, and real-time traffic monitoring require fast processing and quick
response time [1, 2]. End users normally run these applications on their resource-constrained mobile
devices while the core service and processing are performed on cloud servers. Leveraging services
of cloud by mobile devices result in high latency and mobility-related issues [3, 4]. Edge computing
fulfills the above-mentioned application requirements by bringing the processing to the edge of the

Preprint submitted to Elsevier April 2, 2019

network. The cloud computing issues can be resolved through the three Edge computing models
Cloudlets [5, 6], Fog computing [7] and Mobile Edge computing [8, 9].

Edge
Smart meters Cloud

Smart health
Edge system
Cloud

Cloud
Edge
Edge Smart Home
Cloud
Cloud
Smart people 4

1 2 3 4 5

Edge
Smart parking system Cloud

Smart transportation Smart sea monitoring

Edge
Cloud

Figure 1: Edge computing applications

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has introduced the concept of
Mobile Edge computing where mobile users can utilize the computing services from the base station.
The Fog computing concept has been introduced by Cisco [10], which enables the applications to
run directly at the network edge through billions of smart connected devices. Satyanarayanan et
al. [11] introduced the concept of Cloudlets to solve the latency problem in accessing the Cloud
by using the computer resources available in the local network. Similarly, Mobile Edge computing
provides the off-load processing, application services and storage close to the end users.
Among the promising features of Edge computing are included mobility support, location aware-
ness, ultra-low latency, and proximity to the user [12]. These features make Edge computing suitable
for different future applications like industrial automation, virtual reality, real-time traffic moni-
toring, smart home, smart sea monitoring and data analytics as shown in Figure 1. Edge devices
like routers, access points, and base station host different services (e.g., QoS, VPN, and Voice over
IP etc) [13]. These Edge devices act as a bridge that connects the smart mobile devices with the
cloud. Several surveys (S. Yi et al. [14], L. M. Vaquero et al. [15], I. Stojmenovic [16], F. Bonomi

2
et al. [17], T.H. Luan et al. [18], E. Ahmed et al. [19]) have studied various aspects of Edge
computing like Fog computing while a few studies focus on the Edge computing domain like Mobile
Edge computing that focuses on specific application domains. However, there is no comprehensive
study has been completed yet that includes all aspects of Edge computing including Mobile-Edge,
Fog and Cloudlet computing.
The main contribution of this article includes:

• A comprehensive survey on all aspects of Edge computing (Cloudlet, Fog and Mobile-Edge).

• A new classification of multi-facet computing paradigms within Edge computing.

• The identification of key requirements to envision the Edge computing domain.

• The exploration of open research challenges.

The rest of the manuscript is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the core concepts of
cloud computing, edge computing and similar concepts along-with its architecture and differences.
Section 3 discusses the characteristics of Edge computing. Section 4 explores the state-of-the-art in
Edge computing and provides a comparative study of the research work that highlights the merits
and demerits of the existing frameworks. Section 5 outlines the requirements for realizing the vision
of Edge computing.Section 6 highlights the research challenges and open issues.Finally, Section 7
concludes the paper. Table 1 provide a list of acronyms used in this paper.

2. Background
This section presents the fundamental concepts of Cloud computing and its main difference
with the Edge computing. The basic concepts of Cloudlet, Fog and Mobile Edge computing are
also presented in this section. The aim of this section is to provide the reader with a solid foundation
of the research subject.

2.1. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a computing paradigm that offers on-demand services to the end-users
through pool of computing resources that includes storage services, computing resources and so
on[20]. The key services that Cloud computing offers includes infrastructure as a service(IAAS),
platform as a service(PAAS) and software as a service (SAAS) [21]. All these services provide
on-demand computing services such as storing and data processing [22]. Besides offering the above-
mentioned services, the Cloud computing also focuses on dynamic optimization of shared resources
among multiple users. For instance, a Cloud computing resource (such as email) is allotted to
western user based on his/her time zone. Through Cloud computing, the same resource is allotted
to Asian user as well based on his/her time zone.

3
 Table 1: List of acronyms and their descriptions.
Acronym Description
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
IAAS Infrastructure as a Service
PAAS Platform as a Service
SAAS Software as a Service
VPN Virtual Private Networking
RAN Radio Access Network
IoT Internet of Things
LISP Locator ID Separation Protocol
A-BCI Augmented Brain Computer Interfaces
M2M Machine-to-Machine
E-HAMC Emergency Help Alert Mobile Cloud
HEM Home Energy Management
IOV Internet of Vehicles
RSU Road Side Units
D2D Data to Decision
VM Virtual Machine
FC-MCPS Fog Computing-enabled Medical Cyber-Physical System
VMD Virtual Medical Device
MINLP Mixed Integer Non-linear Programming
PPFA Privacy-preserving Fog-enabled Aggregation
IDS Intrusion Detection System
VHD Virtual Honeypot Device
WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network
BS Base Stations
UE User Equipment
MECC Mobile Edge Cloud Computing
CSo Cloud Server Operator
ESOs End eerver Owners
MD Mobile Device
QoS Quality of Service

2.2. Edge Computing

Edge computing directs computational data, applications, and services away from Cloud servers
to the edge of a network. The content providers and application developers can use the Edge
computing systems by offering the users services closer to them. Edge computing is characterized
in terms of high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and real-time access to the network information that
can be used by several applications [23–25].
The service provider can make available the radio access network (RAN) to the Edge users by
opening access to new applications and services. Edge computing enables several new services for
enterprises and consumers [26]. The use cases of Edge computing are location services, augmented
reality, video analytics, and data caching. Thus, these new Edge computing standards and deploy-
ment of Edge platforms become key enablers for new revenue streams to vendors, third-parties, and
operators.

4
2.3. Main Differences between Cloud and Edge Computing
Edge computing is an advanced version of Cloud computing that reduces latency by bringing the
services close to the end-users. Edge computing minimizes the load of a cloud by providing resources
and services in the Edge network. However, Edge computing complements Cloud computing by
enhancing the end user service for delay-sensitive applications [27]. Similar to Cloud, Edge service
providers furnish application, data computation, and storage services to the end users.
Despite these service similarities, several considerable differences exist between these two emerg-
ing computing paradigms. The main difference between Edge computing and Cloud computing lies
in the location of the servers. The services in Edge computing are located in the Edge network
whereas the services in the Cloud are located within the Internet.
The availability of the Cloud services within the Internet depends on the distance of multi-hop
between the end user and the Cloud servers. The significantly high distance between the mobile
device and the Cloud server induces high latency in Cloud computing as compared to the low latency
found in Edge computing. Similarly, Cloud computing has high jitter whereas Edge computing has
very low jitter. Unlike the Cloud computing, Edge computing is location-aware and high support
mobility. Edge computing uses a distributed model for server distribution as compared to Cloud
computing that uses a centralized model. The probability of data en-route attacks is higher in
Cloud computing than Edge computing caused by the longer path to the server. The targeted
users for Cloud computing are general Internet users whereas the targeted service subscribers for
Edge computing are the Edge users. Unlike the global scope of Cloud computing, the scope of Edge
computing is limited. Lastly, Edge hardware possesses limited capabilities that make it less scalable
than the Cloud.

2.4. Edge Computing and Similar Concepts

Edge computing is the extension of Cloud computing where the computing services are brought
closer to the end-users at the edge of the network. The Edge vision has been developed to address the
issue of high latency in delay-sensitive services and applications that are not properly handled within
the Cloud computing paradigm. These applications have the following requirements: a) very low
and predictable latency, b) location awareness, and c) mobility support. Although Edge computing
provides several advantages over Cloud computing, the research on the emerging domain is still in
its infancy. This survey article comprehensively covers all the three aspects of Edge computing,
which are Cloudlets, Fog computing and Mobile Edge computing.
According to [15], Edge computing is an autonomous computing model comprising of numerous
distributed heterogeneous devices that communicate with the network and perform computing tasks
such as storage and processing. These tasks can also support in offering lease based services where
a user lease a device and get incentives in return.
According to Cisco, Fog computing constitutes an extension of the Cloud computing paradigm
that brings resources and services from the core network in the edge network [10]. It is a virtu-
alized platform that furnishes storage, computation, and networking services in the edge network.
Cloudlet [11] and Mobile-Edge computing [28] constitute some of the concepts that are similar to

5
Fog computing paradigm. Cloudlet and Mobile-Edge computing are designed to provide the ser-
vices only to mobile users with the flexibility of using the locally available resources. However, Fog
specifically relies on the hardware designed by Cisco that possesses computational capabilities along
with the normal functionality of the device such as router and switches.

3. Edge Computing Characteristics

Edge computing possesses several characteristics similar to the Cloud computing.However, the
distinguishing characteristics of Edge computing that makes it unique are as follows:

3.1. Dense Geographical Distribution

Edge computing brings the Cloud services closer to the user by deploying numerous computing
platforms in the edge networks [29]. The dense geographical distribution of the infrastructure assists
in the following ways: a) The network administrators can facilitate location-based mobility services
without traversing the entire WAN; b) Big data analytics can be performed rapidly with better
accuracy [30, 31]; c) The Edge systems enable the real-time analytics on a large scale [32, 33].
Examples include sensor networks to monitor the environment and pipeline monitoring.

3.2. Mobility Support

As the number of mobile devices is rapidly growing, Edge computing also supports mobility, such
as the Locator ID Separation Protocol (LISP), to communicate directly with mobile devices. The
LISP protocol decouples the location identity from the host identity and implements a distributed
directory system. The decoupling of the host identity from the location identity constitutes the key
principle that enables the mobility support in Edge computing.

3.3. Location Awareness

The location-awareness attribute of Edge computing allows the mobile users to access services
from that Edge server closest to their physical location. Users can employ various technologies such
as cell phone infrastructure, GPS, or wireless access points to find the location of electronic devices.
This location awareness can be used by several Edge computing applications such as Fog-based
vehicular safety applications and Edge-based disaster management.

3.4. Proximity
In Edge computing, computation resources and services are available in the proximity of the users
that can improve their experience. The availability of the computational resources and services in
the local vicinity allows the users to leverage the network context information for making offloading
decisions and service usage decisions. Similarly, the service provider can leverage the mobile user’s
information by extracting device information and analyzing the user’s behavior in order to improve
their services and resource allocation.

6
3.5. Low Latency
Edge Computing paradigms bring the computation resources and services closer to the users,
which reduces the latency in accessing the services. The low latency of Edge computing enables the
users to execute their resource-intensive and delay-sensitive applications on the resource-rich Edge
devices (e.g. router, access point, base station, or dedicated server).

3.6. Context-Awareness
Context-awareness is the characteristic of mobile devices and can be defined interdependently
to location awareness. Context information of the mobile device in Edge computing can be used to
take offloading decisions and access the Edge services [34]. The real-time network information, such
as network load and user location, can be used to offer the context-aware services to the Edge users.
Further, the service provider can use the context information to ameliorate the user satisfaction
and quality of experience.

3.7. Heterogeneity
Heterogeneity in Edge computing refers to the existence of varied platforms, architectures, in-
frastructures, computing, and communication technologies used by the Edge computing elements
(end devices, Edge servers, and networks). In end device heterogeneity, software, hardware and tech-
nology variations constitute the main factors of the heterogeneity. Edge server side-heterogeneity is
mainly due to APIs, custom-built policies, and platforms. Such existed differences result in inter-
operability issues and render it a main challenge in the successful deployment of Edge computing.
The network heterogeneity refers to the diversity of communication technologies that impact the
Edge service delivery.

4. State-of-the-Art on Edge Computing

This section aims to critically analyze the literature available on Edge computing paradigms,
including Fog computing, Cloudlets, and Mobile Edge computing. Figure 2 gives a picture of
classification of Edge computing and similar concepts.

4.1. Fog Computing

In this subsection, we classify the literature produced on Fog computing into real-time applica-
tion execution, big data analytics, resource management, and security and privacy. Table 2 provides
a comparison of Fog computing solutions based on their objectives.

7
 Figure 2: Classifications of Edge computing

4.1.1. Real-time Application Execution

J.K. Zao et al. [35] proposed an architecture of augmented brain-computer interfaces (A-BCI)
system. The key component of the architecture is the online data server known as the Fog server,
which can be installed on television set-top boxes, personal computers, or gaming consoles. Each
Fog server works as a signal processor and data hub. Besides that, the server supports preprocessing
of the signal, identification of a source, and fitting of an autoregressive model. The availability of
the Fog server in the proximity of the user and wireless sensors form a triangular connection among
the nodes. The triangular association can be leveraged to augment the flexibility and performance
of the system. The proposed system also support machine-to-machine (M2M) publish/subscribe
protocols. System security constitutes a paramount issue of the pervasive computing system and is
implemented by employing transport layer security protocol.
M. Aazam et al. [36] proposed an emergency alert and management service architecture called
emergency help alert mobile cloud (E-HAMC), that leverages on Fog and Cloud platforms. The
proposed system handles different types of emergency situations efficiently. In case of an emergency,
data is transmitted to the Fog server that sends alert messages to family members and appropriate
emergency handling departments. Further, the data is pre-processed and uploaded to the Cloud

8
 Table 2: Comparison of Fog computing solutions based on objectives
Minimizing La- Obtaining Optimizing Maximizing Strengthening
tency Real-time Data Resource Privacy Security
Insights Utilization
J.K. Zao et al. [35] 3 7 7 7 7
M. Aazam et al. [36] 3 7 7 7 7
M.A. Al Faruque et al. [37] 3 7 7 7 7
C. Lin et al. [38] 7 3 7 7 7
R. Iqbal et al. [39] 7 3 7 7 7
J. He et al.[40] 7 3 7 7 7
S. K. Datta et al. [41] 7 3 7 7 7
M. Aazam et al. [42] 7 3 7 7 7
J. Preden et al. [43] 7 3 7 7 7
L. Yin et al. [44] 7 7 3 7 7
B. Jia et al. [45] 7 7 3 7 7
L. Gu et al. [46] 7 7 3 7 7
M.A. Hassan et al. [47] 7 7 3 7 7
K. Hong et al. [48] 7 7 3 7 7
F. Bonomi et al. [49] 7 7 3 7 7
M. Aazam et al. [50] 7 7 3 7 7
C. T. Do et al. [51] 7 7 3 7 7
T.Wang et al.[52] 7 7 7 3 7
L. Zhang et al.[53] 7 7 7 3 7
L. Lyu et al. [54] 7 7 7 3 7
A. S. Sohal et al. [55] 7 7 7 7 3
S.J. Stolfo [56] 7 7 7 7 3

that analyses it and also creates an extended services portfolio. The E-HAMC system keeps a list
of close family members that eliminates the need to search for family member contact details in
time of emergency. The user clicks on the event type, and the remaining task is performed by the
application in cooperation with the Fog server. The initial location is exchanged with the Fog server
through global positioning.
M.A. Al Faruque et al. [37] presented energy management as a service over the Fog computing
platform. The proposed platform is scalable, adaptive and open source that enables the end users to
implement energy management as a service with low implementation cost and time-to-market. The
hardware of the platform consists of multiple devices based on its operating domain. The devices
can be gateways, sensors, actuator, computing and connecting devices. In the home energy man-
agement (HEM) platform, multiple devices are being monitored to minimize energy consumption.
The main computing device that manages the monitoring and controlling tasks is known as the
HEM control panel responsible for discovering and monitoring the devices, handling load requests,
and instructing the devices depending upon the algorithms implemented. The service-oriented
architecture abstracts the hardware and communication heterogeneity.

4.1.2. Big Data Analytics

The proliferation of smart technologies and the deployment of intelligent cyber-physical systems
have transformed traditional industries into modern industries. In practice, most factory systems

9
are based on a centralized Cloud infrastructure, which no longer affords heavy computing workload
from thousands of smart devices deployed in the factory. In order to resolve this issue, an approach
of deploying Fog computing resources located near to the factory devices was introduced in [38].
The proposed approach helps to provide real-time feedback on sites. The study also focused on
the deployment of an intelligent computing system comprised of data centers, gateways, Fog/Edge
devices in a logistics center. The study also established an integer programming model that min-
imizes the total installed cost of the Fog-enabled devices. Furthermore, it solved the NP-hard
facility location problem through a genetic algorithm. Simulation results verify high performance
when deploying intelligent computing systems in a logistics center. Despite the many advantages of
the proposed approach, there are some indeterminate factors concerning deployment, such as data
traffic, latency, energy consumption, load balance, heterogeneity, fairness, and QoS, which were not
considered.
R. Iqbal et al. [39] proposed a Fog-based data analytics framework to overcome the challenges
involved in offering context-aware services in an Internet of vehicles (IoV) environment. The frame-
work consists of the five layers of the data collection layer, the pre-processing layer, the reconstruc-
tion layer, the service layer, and the application layer. The first layer is responsible for collecting
IoV systems data from distinct sources such as vehicles, road sensors, autonomous cars, pedestri-
ans, and roadside units. The pre-processing layer helps in data extraction, trimming, reconstruction
and modeling and provides a baseline to the layers above that extract meaningful information from
the given datasets. The analytics layer constitutes the prime layer of the framework as it helps
bring data intelligence near to the user network and is based on the Fog computing concept. The
fourth layer is responsible for managing and exposing the results of analytics while the application
layer is responsible for dealing with different IoV applications based on their QoS requirements.
Although the appropriateness of the framework was evaluated through two indispensable use cases,
the benefits of the framework were not verified through implementation.
A multitier Fog computing model with the objective of enabling large-scale data analytics for
smart city applications was proposed in [40]. The model is comprised of ad hoc and dedicated fogs
that mitigate the indispensable problems associated with dedicated computing infrastructure and
Cloud computing in terms of latency. The experiments were performed on Raspberry Pi computers
based on a distributed computing engine, which helps measure the performance of the analytics
tasks and creates easy-to-use workload models. In order to maximize the analytics service utilities,
quality-ware admission control, offloading, and resource allocation approaches were recommended.
The experimental results revealed that the proposed multitier Fog-based model significantly im-
proves analytics services for smart city applications. However, it lacked a rigorous evaluation and
validation of the model.
S. K. Datta et al.[41] presented consumer centric IoT based applications and services that sup-
port delay-sensitive operations. They also proposed an architecture comprised of connected vehicles
with road side units (RSUs) and M2M gateways. The architecture facilitates the provisioning of
several consumer centric services, such as data analytics using semantic web technologies, IoT ser-
vices discovery, and connected vehicles management. The data generated by smartphones, sensors,

10
and vehicles constitute raw data that must be processed using semantic web technologies. The pro-
cessed data contains actionable intelligence that can be used by connected vehicles to take smart
decisions. In order to support this functionality, the M2M measurement framework is installed on
RSUs and M2M gateways that collect the sensor metadata and produce inferred data. The ser-
vices (including applications) that is offered by the RSUs and M2M gateways is accessed by the
IoT services discovery module. The connected vehicles management framework is based on OMA
lightweight M2M technical specifications that assists in high mobility of the devices. The framework
enables the consumers to update, read and write sensor configurations.
M. Aazam et al. [42] proposed a smart gateway (SG) architecture for Fog computing. SG is
responsible for performing different tasks in IoT, such as data collection and preprocessing, data
filtering, uploading only necessary data, monitoring IoT objects activities and their energy level,
and security and privacy of data. The data collected from IoT can be transmitted either directly
or through the base station(s) to the SG. The SG based communication can be classified into two
types namely single-hop connectivity and multiple hop-connectivity. In single-hop connectivity,
smart objects are directly connected to the gateway that collects data and forwards it to the Fog.
This type of communication is suitable for smart sensing devices with restricted roles that are
directly connected to the Gateway. When multiple networks of sensor and IoT are deployed, the
direct communication with the SG is not possible. Each sensor network has its own sink node, and
Gateway collects the data from multiple sink nodes and base stations. These types of scenarios are
appropriate for large-scale IoT and mobile objects.
J. Preden et al. [43] presented a Fog computing-based approach for combining data with the
decision mechanism while computing on the edge of the user network. This approach enables the use
of the sensor-generated big data while considering the bandwidth constraints. The data-to-decision
(D2D) concept is used to find and provide actionable data to decision-makers considering their data
requirements. The D2D further discusses the data collection and integration of actionable data to
extract the suitable situational information for examining threats and decision consequences. The
authors suggested a system-of-systems approach for performing the tasks where each single system
has autonomy and computational resources to execute the necessary tasks. Although the D2D
concept is applicable to all levels of organizations, the concept can also be applied to individuals
on the edge who have access to modern communication platforms.

4.1.3. Resource Management

Fog computing is capable of providing a variety of services in smart manufacturing as it enables
real-time analysis able to diagnose device faults. The devices involved in manufacturing upload
their voluminous amounts of data to fog nodes. However, fog nodes have scarce resources in terms
of computation and storage, which requires efficient resource utilization mechanisms. Applying
virtualization technology to Fog computing can help improve resource utilization and avoid the
effects of resource competition. Virtual machine (VM) is regarded as one of the widely adopted
virtual technologies, despite its high boot-time and monitoring cost. In order to overcome these
issues, a lightweight virtualization technology called container has been introduced. In [44], the

11
researchers investigated task scheduling problems by using the container concept in Fog computing
and proposed container-based task scheduling algorithms. The results revealed that the proposed
algorithms help improve resource utilization by minimizing latency. However, the study ignored the
important factor of finiteness of Cloud resources usually taken into account in the real-scenarios.
Additionally, the image placement of containers constitutes a crucial problem that needs to be
addressed.
B. Jia et al. [45] formulated the resource allocation problem in Fog computing networks as a
double two-sided matching optimization problem and proposed a double-matching strategy based
on deferred acceptance algorithm. The numerical analysis result demonstrated that high-cost pro-
ficiency can be achieved in terms of resource allocation using the proposed scheme. Furthermore,
under the proposed approach, three participants within the Fog networks could achieve stable re-
sults. In the future, the work further can be extended to unmanned aerial vehicles.
L. Gu et al. [46] proposed the Fog computing-enabled medical cyber-physical system (FC-
MCPS), which provides hosting services to virtual medical device (VMD) applications. In particular,
the study focused on efficient resource management problems with the objective of guaranteeing
QoS in FC-MCPS. The problem was formulated in a form of mixed-integer non-linear programming
(MINLP) involving high computational complexity. Furthermore, a low-complexity two-phase linear
programming based heuristic algorithm was proposed. Extensive experimental results show that
the algorithm outperforms a greedy approach.
M.A. Hassan et al. [47] proposed an adaptive mobile application offloading and mobile storage
augmentation mechanisms in context of Fog computing to assist the mobile application execution.
The proposed offloading decision requires the active monitoring of the resources. The decision
incorporates the resource dynamics and availability to predict the performance of various tasks
execution on different computing platforms. The proposed storage augmentation mechanism com-
bines the available storage space of a user’s multiple devices to form a distributed storage service
of Fog computing. The active monitoring of resources consumes the resources of mobile devices,
and combining the storage space of devices requires the uniform storage management and access
mechanism.
K. Hong et al. [48] presented a high level PaaS programming model, called Mobile Fog for
emerging mobile applications that are latency-sensitive and geo-spatially distributed. The devel-
opment of Fog computing-based applications is challenging due to orchestration of highly dynamic
heterogeneous resources at various levels of hierarchy. The proposed PaaS programming model
mitigates the complexity involved in the Fog-based application development. Mobile Fog supports
on-demand allocation of computing instance to support the dynamic workloads of real applications.
This enables the feature of dynamic scalability that depends upon user-defined scaling policy. The
scaling policy incorporates monitoring metrics including network bandwidth, CPU utilization, and
scaling conditions, such as CPU utilization more than 70%. The proposed high level PaaS program-
ming model makes the programming, maintenance, and debugging easier and thus ensures faster
prototyping. However, the high-level PaaS program runs slower than the low level programming
model and requires more computation time.

12
 F. Bonomi et al. [49] presented a high-level Fog software architecture and various enabling
technologies that are vital for realizing the vision of Fog computing. Fog architecture enables the
co-existence of applications from different users where each user receives the perception of dedicated
resources. The distributed architecture of the Fog relies on the virtualization of different components
such as computing, storage, and networking. For automatic management of resources, Fog supports
a mechanism which is similar to Cloud based on policy-based provisioning mechanism. The authors
also presented the indispensable use cases to highlight the need for Fog within Big Data and IoT
space.
M. Aazam et al. [50] formulated a Fog-based service oriented resource management model for
an IoT environment. The model aims to fairly and efficiently manage the resources. The authors
classified the IoT devices into three groups considering the mobility factor and the nature of the
device and manages the resources accordingly. The work mainly focused on resource prediction, es-
timation, reservation and pricing of resources considering device, and customer type. The resources
estimation model is formulated as:
n
X
R= ((Ui ∗ ((1 − x̄(Pi (L|H)s )) − σ 2 ) ∗ (1 − ωi ) ∗ φ) (1)
i=0

where R, Ui , x̄(Pi (L|H)s ), σ 2 , ωi and φ represent required resources, basic price of requested
service i, average of service oriented relinquish probabilities of particular customer, variance of
service oriented relinquish probabilities, constant decision variable value, and the type of accessing
device, respectively. Although the proposed model involves resource estimation, it possesses high
complexity due to the incorporation of multiple parameters.
C. T. Do et al. [51] focused on convex optimizsation problem where costs and location diver-
sities are modelled. The authors proposed a scheme based on joint-resource allocation for video
streaming service in Fog computing. Besides,the issue of minimizing carbon footprint problem was
also analyzed.The joint resource allocation and carbon footprint minimizing problem constitutes a
large-scale convex optimization problem as it involves a large number of Fog computing nodes. The
authors proposed a distributed solution for attaining the scalability and improving the performance
based on a proximal algorithm to divide the large-scale global problem into several sub-problems.
Contrary to conventional methods, proximal algorithms converge rapidly and possess robustness
without strong assumptions. The social welfare maximization problem in terms of utility and cost
function can be written as:
N N
max X X
x ≥ 0, y ≥ 0 Un (xn ) − C(y)s.t. xn = y ≤ ζ/κ (2)
n=1 n=1

where the constraint represents the capacity constraint on data center. Un (xn ) is the utility
function for using xn units of resources and C(y) is the total cost.

13
4.1.4. Security and Privacy
Recent years have seen an explosive growth of unstructured data mostly stored on cloud-based
technology. In case of cloud storage, users completely lose control over their data, and thus face
privacy leakage risks. Typically, privacy protection solutions are based on encryption technology.
However, these schemes are no longer effective enough to resist against attacks launched inside of
cloud server. To resolve this issue, a Fog computing-based three-layer privacy-preserving storage
scheme was proposed in [52]. The scheme reaps the benefit of cloud storage while ensuring user
data protection. Furthermore, a Hash-Solomon algorithm was designed to compute the distribution
proportion stored in the cloud, Fog and local machine. The theoretical analysis results validated the
feasibility of the proposed scheme. Resource allocation schemes are widely adopted in Fog computing
as they ensure optimal utilization of the resources. However, these schemes are vulnerable to cyber
and physical attacks. In order to overcome this problem, a privacy-preserving scheme was proposed
in [53]. The scheme is based on constant message expansion. Formal analysis results show that
the scheme helps to mitigate against eavesdropping and smart gateway attacks as they are mostly
launched on resource allocation algorithms. Additionally, the proposed scheme is robust, as it fulfills
users’ privacy needs by having full key compromise resistance.
L. Lyu et al. [54] proposed a smart metering aggregation framework called privacy-preserving
Fog-enabled aggregation (PPFA). The framework is based on Fog computing architecture and ad-
ditive homographic encryption. PPFA enables smart meters to encrypt the noisy results by adding
concentrated Gaussian noise to their data. PPFA guarantees aggregator obliviousness as interme-
diate nodes are involved. Robustness was ensured by using a two-layer encryption scheme. The
first layer helps in achieving aggregator obliviousness, whereas, the second layer is used for authen-
ticating. The results demonstrated that PPFA ensures privacy by saving a significant amount of
energy, alleviating bandwidth bottleneck problem, and minimizing network latency. However, the
framework still needs to be tested for distributed applications by considering heterogeneous queries.
A. S. Sohal et al. [55] proposed a cybersecurity framework for identifying malicious edge devices
in a Fog environment by using the Markov model, intrusion detection system (IDS), and virtual
honeypot device (VHD). A two-stage hidden Markov model is used for categorizing four different
edge devices (legitimate device (LD), sensitive device (SD), under-attack device (UD) and hacked
device (HD)) into four different levels. A secure load balancer (SLB) is used to provide services to
all edge devices so that a load of Fog layer resources is balanced. The IDS is used for continuous
surveillance of the services which are granted to LDs and prediction of hacked devices. The proposed
cybersecurity framework works as follows: First, on the identification of any attack by IDS, attack
alarm is generated, and the detection phase is triggered for that edge device. The identification
and category of the attacked edge device are sent to Markov 1 which is responsible for calculating
the attack probability of the edge device and its category. In the second step, Markov 2 utilizes the
information of Markov 1 to predict whether the edge device should be shifted to VHD or not. If
any LD is detected on VHD that is shifted mistakenly, LDP of that edge device is calculated using
Markov 3, and its value is sent to Markov 4 which is further responsible for predicting whether to

14
shift edge device back to LD status or not. VHD is responsible for storing and maintaining the log
repository of all the devices identified as malicious by IDS as well as continuously monitoring the
shifted edge devices to VHD. The experimental results show a better response time for achieving
high accuracy. However, the important parameters of cost of response and cost of damage which
affect the response time are not considered. While achieving high accuracy with a lower cost of
damage, the cost of response for the proposed algorithm is high. The cost of response will increase
due to the increase and severity of total number of attacks with time.
S.J. Stolfo [56] proposed an approach to secure the Cloud by utilizing decoy information tech-
nology. The authors introduced disinformation attacks against malicious insiders using the decoy
information technology. Such attacks prevent the malicious insiders from differentiating the real
sensitive data from customer fake data. The security of the Cloud services is enhanced by imple-
menting the two security features of user behavior profiling and decoys. User profiling constitutes
a common technique used to detect when, how, and how much a user accesses the data in the
Cloud. The normal behaviour of a user can be regularly monitored to identify abnormal access to
a user’s data. The decoy consists of worthless data generated to mislead and confuse an intruder
into believing that they have accessed the valuable data. The decoy information can be generated
in several forms, such as decoy documents, honeypots, and honeyfiles. The decoy approach may be
used combined with user behavior profiling technology for ensuring the information security in the
Cloud. When abnormal access to the service is observed, fake information in the form of decoy is
delivered to the illegitimate user in such a way that it seems completely normal and legitimate. The
legitimate user immediately recognizes when decoy data is returned by the Cloud. The inaccurate
detection of unauthorized access is informed by varying the Cloud responses using different means
such as challenge response to the Cloud security system. The proposed security mechanism for Fog
computing still requires further study to analyze false alarms generated by the system and miss
detections.

4.2. Cloudlets
In this subsection the literature related to Cloudlets is classified into resource management, Big
Data analytics, service management, Cloudlet placement, collaborative computing, and hierarchical
computing architecture. Table 3 shows the comparative summary of Cloudlets based schemes.

4.2.1. Resource Management

FemtoClouds is a dynamically self-configuring Cloudlet system that coordinates multiple mobile
devices to provide computational offloading services [57]. Contrary to traditional Cloudlet phe-
nomena, FemtoClouds utilizes the surrounding mobile devices to perform computational offloading
tasks, thereby reducing the network latency. In the proposed system, a device (laptop) acting as a
Cloudlet creates a Wi-Fi access point and controls the mobile devices (compute cluster) willing to
share computation. Mobile devices can offload a task by giving proper information about the task
(such as input and output data size and computational code) to the Cloudlet. Cloudlet first inspects
the available computation resources in the compute cluster and the time required to execute the

15
task. Then, the task is scheduled to the available devices using the greedy heuristic approached
optimization model. The presented system creates a community cloud with minimal dependent on
corporate equipment. The performance of the presented system depends on the number of mobile
device participation in the compute cluster.
L. Liu et al. [58] proposed a two-level optimization mechanism to improve resource allocation
while fulfilling the user demands in a multi-Cloudlet environment. In the first level, MILP is used
to model the optimal Cloudlet selection among multiple available considering the user demand.
If the available Cloudlets are unable to meet the user requirements, the request is forwarded to
the remote cloud. Then, in second level, MILP is used to develop a resource allocation model
for allocating resources from the selected Cloudlet. The Cloudlet selection is based on objective
function of optimizing latency and mean reward whereas selection of resource allocation is based on
optimizing reward and mean resource usage. Although the authors claim that the proposed system
has improved latency and maximized system resources usage and reward, there is a need to study
the overhead and complexity before the practical deployment of the system.

4.2.2. Big Data Analytics

In order to enable the analytics at the edge of the Internet for high data rate sensors used in
IoT, the GigaSight architecture was proposed in [59]. GigaSight is a repository (of crowd-sourced
video content) used to enforce measures like access control and privacy preference. The proposed
architecture constitutes an amalgamation of VM-based Cloudlets that also offers a scalable approach
for data analytics. The aim of the study was to demonstrate that how Edge computing can help
improve the performance for IoT-based high-data rate applications.

4.2.3. Cloudlet Placement

L. Zhao et al. [60] proposed a network architecture for SDN-based IoT that focuses on optimal
placement of Cloudlets to minimize the network access delay. The proposed architecture consists
of the two components of control plane and data plane. The control plane is responsible for signal-
ing and network management whereas data plane forwards the data packets. The SDN controller
keeps the complete view of the network that helps manage the data transmission. Each access
point (AP) forwards the data as guided by the SDN controller. The authors proposed enumeration-
based optimal placement algorithm (EOPA) and Ranking-based Near-Optimal Placement algorithm
(RNOPA) to solve the problem. In EOPA, all potential cases of k Cloudlets placement are enumer-
ated, and the mean Cloudlet access delay of all cases are compared to obtain the optimal one with
minimal average access delay. In RNOPA, those k APs collocated with Cloudlets and most fit are
identified before evaluating the entropy weight of each connection feature. Although RNOPA can
achieve near-optimal performance in terms of network access delay and network reliability, there is
a need to investigate the stability of the Cloudlet system.
Another solution to address the problem of Cloudlet placement was proposed by M. Jia et
al. [61] in the form of two heuristic algorithms for optimal Cloudlet placement in a user-dense
environment of wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN). A a simple heaviest-ap first (HAF)

16
algorithm places a Cloudlet at those APs with the heaviest workloads. However, the drawback of
the HAF approach is that the APs with highest workload are not constantly nearest to their users.
A density-based clustering (DBC) algorithm is proposed to overcome the shortcoming of the HAF
algorithm by deploying Cloudlets in dense users’ places. The algorithm also assigns mobile users
to the deployed Cloudlets considering their workload. Despite the optimal Cloudlet placement, the
proposed solutions do not provide support for user mobility considered as a promising feature of
mobile networks.

4.2.4. Collaborative Computing

F. Hao et al. [62] proposed a two-layer multi-community framework (2L-M C 3 ) for MEC. The
framework allocates tasks in community Clouds/Cloudlet-based environment by incorporating costs
(such as monetary, access), energy consumption, security level and average trust level. The prob-
lem is optimized in two ways: horizontal optimization and vertical optimization. The horizontal
optimization maximizes the Green Security-based Trust-enabled Performance Price ratio whereas
vertical optimization minimizes the communication cost between selected community Clouds and
Cloudlets. Although the proposed framework minimizes the accessing cost, optimizes the degree of
trust and saves the energy, the use of bi-level programming makes the solution complex.

4.2.5. Hierarchical Computing Architecture

Q. Fan et al. [63] proposed a hierarchical Cloudlet network architecture that allocates incoming
user requests to an appropriate Cloudlet. The user’s offloading request is forwarded to the tier-1
Cloudlet. If the tier-1 Cloudlet is unable to handle the request; the request is forwarded to the
upper tier Cloudlet. If all tier Cloudlets are unable to handle, the request is forwarded to the cloud.
A Workload ALLocation (WALL) algorithm is also proposed for the hierarchical Cloudlet network.
The proposed scheme facilitates in distributing the users’ workload among various levels of Cloudlets
and allotting optimal resources to each user. The problem is formulated as an optimization problem
that aims at minimizing the average response time by incorporating network delay and computing
delay.

4.2.6. Security and Privacy

Z. Xu et al. [64] proposed privacy-preserving based offloading and data transmission mechanism
for IoT enabled WMANs. For fast processing, offloading and transmission of IoT data, the APs
with the shortest path are selected using the Dijkstra Algorithm. The IoT data transmission and
task offloading are modelled as a multi-objective problem and solved using non-dominated sorting
differential evolution (NSDE) technique. In order to preserve the privacy, the processing of data is
offloaded to different Cloudlets based on the attributes of IoT data. The experimental results show
that the proposed method has achieved better performance with lower energy consumption and
transmission. However, selecting the data attributes for privacy preserving to different Cloudlets
results into extra processing overhead which is not considered in evaluations of the proposed mech-
anism.

17
 Table 3: Comparison of Cloudlet solutions based on objectives
Cloudlet Solution Maximizing Optimizing Reducing Minimizing Minimizing Minimizing
useful com- Cloudlet Latency cost average re- energy
putations placement/ sponse consump-
selection time tion
K. Habak et al. [57] 3 7 7 7 7 7
L. Liu et al. [58] 7 3 7 7 7 7
M. Satyanarayanan et al. [59] 7 7 3 7 7 7
L. Zhao et al. [60] 7 3 3 7 7 7
M. Jia et al. [61] 7 3 7 7 7 7
F. Hao et al.’s [62] 7 3 7 3 7 3
Q. Fan et al. [63] 7 7 7 7 3 7
Z. Xu et al. [64] 7 7 3 3 3 3

4.3. Mobile Edge Computing

In this subsection we have classified the literature related to Mobile Edge computing into Re-
source Management, Service Management, Real-Time Applications and Security Privacy. Table 4
shows the comparative summary of Mobile Edge computing based approaches.

4.3.1. Resource Management

S. Wu et al. [65] argued that although Mobile Cloud computing and Mobile Fog computing
reduce transmission latency, the containers/virtual machines (VM) are too heavy for Edge/Fog
servers due to the resource-constrained environment involving WiFi access points and cellular base
stations. In order to address this problem, the authors implemented lightweight run-time offloaded
codes for efficient mobile code offloading at the edge server runtime. The proposed method integrates
the existing Android libraries into OSv unikernel. The OSv is a library used to convert Android
application codes to unikernel. The proposed approach was evaluated using performance metrics
of boot-up delay, memory footprint, image size, and energy consumption on single application with
promising results. The limitations of the proposed approach include the overhead associated in
converting each application to unikernel, which means that the proposed approach is not feasible
for multi-process applications.
Q. Fan et al. [66] minimized the total response time of user equipment (UE) request within
the network by proposing a scheme known as Application awaRE workload Allocation (AREA).
The proposed approach works by allocating different user equipment (IoT based) requests among
the least work loaded Cloudlets with minimum network delay between the UE and the Cloudlet.
In order to minimize the delay, the UE requests are assigned to the nearest Cloudlets. The pro-
posed approach was simulated on a medium size cluster using the evaluation performance metrics
of response time, computing delay, and network layer with significant improvement over existing
approaches. However, in real scenario, the simulation set-up seems infeasible as within an area of
25 km, setting up 25 base stations (BS) is impractical. There is high probability of BS overshooting
resulting in interference within neighboring BS, which would cause network delay.

18
 Y. Liu et al. [67] studied the use of Edge computing for computation offloading. The aim is
to achieve the better quality of service provisioning. The authors have formulated an incentive
type of mechanism involving a set of interactions between the cloud service operator and the local
edge server to maximize the cloud service operator utilities in the form of Stackelberg game. In
Stackelberg game, the cloud server operator (CSO) acts as a leader that specify the payments to
the end-server owners (ESOs) and ESO (acts a follower) that determines the computation offloaded
for CSO. As this strategy makes ESOs profit-driven, this results in ESO serving only its own
users, which ensures efficient computation offloading and enhanced cooperation between the ESOs.
However, with the sufficiently large revenue, there will be less computation offloading by ESOs to
CSO due to low utility.
W. Chen et al. [68] addressed the problem of computation offloading in Green Mobile Edge Cloud
Computing (MECC). Since MECC is composed of wireless devices (WDs), the work load from a
mobile device (MD) can be computed using WDs. A multi-user multi-task computation offloading
framework for MECC was proposed based on a scheduling mechanism to map the workload from
MD to multiple WDs. The Lyaponuv optimization approach was used for determining the amount
of energy to be harvested at WDs and incoming computation offloading requests into MECC along
with WDs assigned to compute the workload for the admitted incoming offloading request. This
process maximizes the overall system utility.
R. Wang et al. [69] proposed a knowledge-centric cellular network (KCE) architecture to max-
imize the network resource utilization in learning-based device-to-device (D2D) communication
systems such as social and smart transportation D2D networking systems. The KCE architec-
ture is composed of three layers, namely the physical layer, the knowledge layer, and the virtual
management layer. The physical layer collects and manages the user data among the users, the
knowledge layer manages the connections between users in D2D communication system, and the
virtual management layer is responsible for resource allocation in the D2D assisted network. The
proposed approach seems promising in vehicle-to-vehicle communication application (V2V) whereby
information can be exchanged through Mobile Edge nodes.
X. Chen et al. [70] proposed a system model for cooperative Mobile Edge computing that
combines local device computation and networked resource sharing. Trustworthy cooperation is
achieved between different users (e.g. mobile and wearable devices users) through their social
relationships developed using the device social graph model. Cooperation among devices helps in
processing and execution of different offloaded tasks and network resource sharing using the bipartite
matching based algorithm. The processing power of local mobile devices and available network
resources in close proximity are utilized for a different type of task executions schemes including,
local and offloaded tasks such as D2D, D2D assisted cloud and direct cloud. The experimental results
show cost reduction in computation and tasks offloading. However, in simulation, the maximum
number of devices is set to be 500 and for each trial the simulations are run only 100 times,
which is insufficient for obtaining a reliable result. For the successful practical implementation of
the proposed algorithm, the protocol must run for average 10,000 times and involve large social
communities of devices (≥ 10, 000).

19
 J. Xing et al. [71] proposed the distributed multi-level storage (DMLS) model and multiple-
factors least frequently used (mFlu) replacement algorithm to address the emerging problem of
limited storage and data loss within Edge computing. The proposed model uses intelligent terminal
devices (ITD’s) such as sensors, actuators as storage devices within the edge up to nth level from
user-end to cloud. Once, the storage capacity of the single edge node is exhausted, the mFLU
replacement algorithm takes the part of some data from that node and transfers them to the
upper nodes. The mFLU algorithm is based on traditional replacement algorithms. For evaluation
purposes, a simulation was carried out by creating six level edge storage system (having levels E,
S1, S2, S3, S4 and cloud) using a bottom-top approach. The proposed approach seems promising
for small scale clusters (like 31 nodes in this study) due to stable upper nodes and fixed data block
size. However, the data loss may be higher within large clusters due to the frequent instability of
the upper nodes and the variable data block size.
G. Jia et al. [72] addressed the core issue of data storage and retrieval within the Edge computing
paradigm. A new cache policy namely Hybrid-Least, a recently used cache (LRU) based on PDRAM
memory architecture to solve the issues caused by phase change memory (PRAM-a non-volatile,
high-density storage), was proposed. PRAM exhibits the severe drawback of limited service life
compared to DRAM although it helps safeguard the data. Hence, a hybrid approach based on
PRAM and DRAM was proposed. The approach works by identifying the cache block area and
places DRAM blocks at the back of the cache list and PRAM blocks at the head of the cache list.
It extends the existing LRU cache policy where the most frequently used data is kept at the top
and least used data is pushed to the tail until it is replaced. The results show improvement of 4.6
% on PDRAM architecture. However, there is still room to improve the utilization of PRAM that
achieved only 11.8 % in this study.
J. Yang et al. [73] proposed an Edge computing-based data exchange accounting system for
smart IoT toys. The prototype was developed using Hyperledger Fabric-based blockchain system.
The data exchange and the payments are done between data demanders and suppliers through con-
sortium blockchain based smart contracts. The consensus and validations of data exchange records
and billing among peers are also performed through smart contracts. The proposed accounting sys-
tem is responsible for safe and reliable interactions among smart toys and other IoT devices. The
architecture of Edge computing-based data exchange (EDEC) consists of the five steps of mem-
ber registration, data products release, order generation, data transmission, and accounting and
payment. All transactions between the suppliers and demanders are recorded in four different logs
in a distributed fashion and stored on EDCE servers in a centralized manner. For better perfor-
mance and to support a high number of requests (high throughput), the proposed prototype system
requires more rigorous experimental evaluation.

4.3.2. Service Management

S. Wang et al. [74] discussed the quality of service (QoS) issue for context-aware services such as
service recommendation . The authors highlighted the importance of QoS prediction in the service
recommendation system during user mobility. They proposed a service recommendation approach

20
based on collaborative filtering to make QoS prediction possible using user mobility. The proposed
scheme works by calculating the user/edge server similarity based on the user’s changing locations.
Finally, to decrease data volatility, Top-K most similar neighbors are selected for QoS prediction.
The proposed approach shows improved results compared to previous approaches. It is suitable
when the density of the Edge server nodes is sparse, yet for larger networks involving more Edge
servers, the similarity computation might produce incorrect results.

4.3.3. Real-Time Applications

Z. Zhao et al. [75] proposed the three-phase deployment approach for reducing the number of
Edge servers to improve throughput between IoT and Edge nodes. The aim is to support real-
time processing for a large-scale IoT network. The proposed approach comprises of discretization,
a utility metric, and the deployment algorithm. In the discretization phase, the whole network
is discretized into small sections, and the candidate node is identified from the centroid of each
section. The performance gained of each candidate node along with its link quality and correlation
is evaluated in utility metric phase. Finally, the best node is deployed within the network resulting
in maximum throughput. The approach was evaluated using the performance metric of throughput
with significant improvement in throughput for heterogenous data. However, in case of applications
requiring homogenous amount of data, the proposed approach may not be suitable due to the
accountability of traffic diversity parameter.
M. Chen et al. [76] proposed an Edge and cognitive computing (ECC) based smart healthcare
system for patients in emergency situations. Cognitive computing is utilized for analyzing and
monitoring the physical health conditions of patients in emergency situations. Based on the health
condition of the patient, the processing resources of Edge devices are allocated. Cognitive computing
processing and analysis are performed on Edge devices for low latency and fast processing. The
proposed ECC system architecture consists of the two modules of data and resource cognitive
engines. The role of data cognitive engine is to collect and analyze the data. Different types of
internal and external data are collected by the data cognitive engine, which includes patient physical
and behavioral data, type of network, data flow, and communication channel quality. The resource
cognitive engine is responsible for collecting the information related to the available Edge, Cloud,
and network resources before being sent to the data cognitive engine for the allocation of resources
according to the requirement and risk level of the patient. However, systems related to healthcare
face the challenge of user privacy. Furthermore, the proposed system lacks privacy protections of
sensitive user data. The proposed system calculates the health risk level of each user based on his
or her sensitive information, which is stored and processed on Edge systems that may leak.

4.3.4. Security and Privacy

L. Ma at al. [77] proposed two reputation-based privacy preserving schemes called Basic Privacy
Preserving Reputation Management (B-PPRM) and Advanced Privacy Preserving Reputation Man-
agement (A-PPRM) for Edge computing-based mobile crowd-sensing systems. The crowd-sensing
system works in two phases. In the first phase, the central manager (CM) distribute sensing task

21
among the participants of the system when in a particular area a sensing task is required. The
participant who performs the sensing task encrypts its sense data and sends it to the CM. In the
second phase, the participant receives the reputation value as a reward by the reputation manager
(RM) with the help of an Edge node. In B-PPRM, the encrypted deviation of the sense data from
aggregated sense data is computed by an Edge node, which sends it to the RM. After receiving the
encrypted deviation results, the participant node reputation value is updated by the RM. In order
to preserve the privacy of the participant, the sensed data are encrypted and accessible only for
those participants of the crowd-sensing system who can also perform the sensing task. In A-PPRM,
the rank of encrypted deviation results of the participant is calculated by the Edge node and the
RM using DGK protocol. The reputation values are updated based on the deviation rank by the
RM. The original sensed data are not available to malicious participants who can only access the
deviation values. The experimental results show that the malicious participants are successfully
handled by the proposed algorithms. However, preserving privacy through reputation management
introduces additional computational cost as the reputation manager has to update the reputation
values and calculate the rank of the deviations of the participants.
M. Du et al. [78] proposed two privacy-preserving algorithms called Output Perturbation (OPP)
and Objective Perturbation (OJP). The authors have identified privacy issues in training data of
machine learning algorithms processed and computed by Edge nodes. In most cases privacy can
be violated through correlated datasets. The proposed algorithms preserve training data privacy
by employing differential privacy through machine learning. In their proposed algorithm, they
added noise in wireless big data by applying the Laplace mechanism to the smart edge. The
proposed algorithms are compared with stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and private aggregation
of teacher ensembles (PATE-G) using the four datasets CIFAR-10, MNIST, STL-10, and SVHN
and Tensorflow. Their proposed algorithms achieved accurate privacy preserving, which also means,
however, that a larger privacy budget is required and that the data utility decreases.
R. Kozik et al. [79] proposed a distributed attack detection system for Cloud and Edge assisted
IoT applications. The proposed system is based on machine learning models and uses Extreme
Learning Machine (ELM) classifiers for network traffic analysis and classification. The network
traffic classification and inspection tasks are performed on Edge devices while those tasks that
require high processing and storage are performed on Cloud servers. The ELM classifiers work in
two stages for processing the data. In the first stage, the data is arranged according to its features
into multi-dimensional and random order. In the second stage, the machine learning classifier is
trained to arrange the data for normal and threat models. The tasks are then easily divided for
processing on Cloud and Edge devices. The cloud services are mostly used for processing and
storage of collected data, but the anonymized data is sent to Cloud for analysis and storage. ELM
classifiers are trained using Cloud storage data and are then used by Edge devices for anomalies and
attack detection. The proposed system requires more computational resources in terms of parallel
processing nodes in order to reduce the training time for large data sets.
J. Yuan et al. [80] presented a hybrid trust computing approach for the assessment of IoT
Edge devices. The proposed framework consists of a combination of three different procedures,

22
namely the global trust calculation using multi-source feedback process, the trust evaluation process
based on the cooperation of IoT Edge devices, and the trust factor calculation using the objective
information entropy theory-based algorithm. Collaboration among IoT Edge devices is encouraged
through incentive-based trust management scheme. For efficient trust calculation, the whole process
is done on Edge devices. For calculating the trust and incentives of a particular IoT Edge device,
the two factors considered are the interaction with other devices and the quality of service provided
by the IoT Edge device. However, the proposed trust mechanism lacks any incentive mechanism,
which may prevent the IoT devices from successfully adopting and collaborating with other IoT
devices.
R. Rapuzzi et al. [81] discussed the network threats detected in Fog and Edge computing. This
work also developed situational awareness to counter these threats during installations of Edge
and Fog systems through different layers of the proposed conceptual framework. It consists of the
presentation layer, the business logic layer, and the context fabric layer. The presentation layer is
responsible for situational awareness, the business logic layer for analysis, processing, and correlation
of data, and the context fabric layer for the collection of events from different sources and context
information. The authors argued that the analysis of data from different sources and shifting
the design of architectures from vertically close to horizontally open could help in identification,
situational awareness, and the detection of network threats. However, the proposed framework is
conceptual and in order to verify the effectiveness and adoptability of the framework, the detection
protocol needs to be developed, implemented, and tested in real-world scenarios.
J. Cui et al. [82] proposed a message authentication scheme using Edge computing for VANETs.
The proposed scheme consists of the RSU, trusted authority (TA), and a vehicle equipped with an
onboard unit (OBU). A vehicle participating in the message authentication is called Edge computing
vehicle (ECV). RSU acts as the cloud of the vehicle and is responsible for quickly verifying the
feedback given by the ECVs. After obtaining the legitimacy of these messages, the information is
broadcasted to the vehicle through the cuckoo filter. For message authentication, different parts of
the vehicle act as Edge computing nodes in order to aid RSU. In order to validate the messages, the
vehicle only needs to query the filter, and thus redundant authentication is reduced and the efficiency
of the entire system is enhanced even if VANET is attacked. The experimental results show that the
proposed scheme achieves better efficiency than other message authentication schemes. However,
the use of the cuckoo filter results in higher communication and processing costs.

5. Requirements for Enabling Edge Computing

This section highlights key requirements that need to be met in order to utilize Edge computing
systems. The requirements for Edge computing can be classified into the Smart Billing Mechanism,
Real-time applications support, Joint Business Model for Management and Deployment, Resource
Management, Scalable architecture, Redundancy and fail-over capabilities and Security. Each re-
quirement is discussed in detail. Figure 3 summarizes the requirements for enabling Edge computing
systems.

23
 Table 4: Comparison of Mobile Edge computing solutions based on objectives
Mobile Edge com- Optimizing Maximizing Optimizing Reducing Transparent Minimizing
puting Solution Execution Throughput Deployment Network Resource Energy Con-
Cost Latency Augmenta- sumption
tion
Z. Zhao et al. [75] 7 3 3 3 7 7
M. Chen et al. [76] 3 3 7 3 7 7
S. Wu et al. [65] 3 7 7 3 3 3
Q. Fan et al. [66] 3 3 7 3 7 7
Y. Liu et al. [67] 3 7 7 3 3 7
W. Chen et al. [68] 7 7 7 7 3 3
R. Wang et al. [69] 3 3 7 3 3 7
X. Chen et al. [70] 3 7 3 7 3 3
J. Xing et al. [71] 3 7 7 7 7 7
G. Jia et al. [72] 3 7 7 7 7 3
J. Yang et al. [73] 3 3 7 3 7 7
S. Wang et al. [74] 7 7 3 7 7 7
L. Ma at al. [77] 7 7 7 7 7 3
M. Du et al. [78] 3 7 7 7 7 7
R. Kozik et al. [79] 3 7 7 7 3 7
J. Yuan et al. [80] 3 3 7 3 3 7
R. Rapuzzi et al. [81] 7 7 7 7 7 7
J. Cui et al. [82] 3 7 3 7 7 3

5.1. Dynamic Billing Mechanism

The involvement of multi-vendor systems (multi-service providers and operators), with user mo-
bility, results in challenging user tariff mechanism. A dynamic billing mechanism is required among
various service providers/operators of Edge computing systems when a mobile user is facilitated
through their roaming Edge services. The main motivation behind dynamic billing mechanism is
the number of different mobile users who may request specific resources (e.g., CPU and memory
requirements etc.) with various network parameters (e.g., bandwidth requirement and availability
for data transmission, latency, delay and level of security as per application requirements etc.) from
the cloud through the Edge based systems. Hence, three factors that should be considered while
developing the dynamic billing mechanism include resource availability (e.g., billing charges may
vary in case of more users presence which will result in high resources demand), frequency of re-
source usage (e.g., how frequently a particular user use resources) and duration of resource usage
(e.g., charges may differ for users with long duration resource usage as compared to users with short
duration resources usage due-to management overheads).

5.2. Real-time Applications Support

Edge computing is meant to provide numerous services, particularly to real-time based appli-
cations. E-learning and gamification constitutes one such area where Edge computing can pay
a pivotal role in enhancing the learning process in higher education. Hence, any existing Edge
computing-based network must be reliable enough to handle real-time based applications like E-
learning and gamification-based applications. Gamification is emerging as the latest trend for

24
enhancing the learning process in education and is expected to replace the traditional mode of
learning [83]. Gamification involves embedding game-like elements in courses to enhance learning
capabilities among students. In order to gamify and share real-time based courses with individual
learning institutions such as universities will incur huge computing cost. Edge computing provides
a feasible solution that reduces the cost and computing resources issue for a group of universities.
However, handling such type of applications requires the flexibility of Edge nodes that can adjust
according to demand. In order to gamify the learning process, the neighbouring Edge nodes must
be able to select powerful individual Edge nodes that can dedicate their respective services to han-
dle the cluster of universities with each Edge leader node serving per university. This approach
minimizes the latency for real-time based gamified modules. The absence of priority-based Edge

Figure 3: Requirements for Enabling Edge computing.

25
node selection may increase the latency due to overhead associated in passing data through all the
Edge neighbouring nodes.

5.3. Joint Business Model for Management and Deployment

Edge computing systems are owned by different service providers and work under different
business models. Every business runs according to different business strategies and management
policies and follows different rules and regulations according to the organization of its operation.
Similarly, Edge devices are developed by different vendors and have their own interfaces, which
affects the performance of service and incurs high cost. In order to overcome aforementioned issues,
a joint management and deployment business model is required to ensure high performance and
offer low cost services to end users.

5.4. Resource Management

Investment in infrastructure by an individual Edge computing service provider is based on the
expected service demands by users. This results in moderate resources to serve a specific number of
users. On the other hand, lower service demand results in low revenue. The service providers can
increase their revenue by sharing their available resources with interested service providers who have
higher service demands. The increase in service demands made by users may result in increased
offloading and high optimization between variable computational and network resource allocation
[84]. Joint resource management for serving a large number of users among these heterogeneous
Edge computing systems with varying processing, memory and network resources constitutes an
important requirement. Efficient and simple joint resource management schemes are needed that
offer less processing, transmission, power consumption, and balanced delay.

5.5. Scalable Architecture

Due to the rapid advancements made in IoT, the number of devices in the Edge network has sig-
nificantly increased and with it the demand of Edge-based services and resources. The applications
running on Edge Cloud are expected to perform consistently despite the increasing load. In order to
meet this performance expectation, a scalable Edge computing architecture is considered as vital as
it can lower the cost. A scalable architecture for the Edge computing platform can be designed by
incorporating various features including resource virtualization, blockchain-based trust establish-
ment, and automated Edge-IoT orchestration. Resource virtualization in IoT involves sharing of
IoT resources to multiple applications. These IoT resources (like software based simulators, remote
access to servers via abstraction etc) can be shared through open application package interfaces
(API) using software abstraction. By incorporating resource virtualization, each IoT application is
deployed as an isolated ”slice” that shares the same sensing resources and enables multi-application
co-existence. The blockchain and smart contracts enable IoT devices to significantly lower the cost
incurred with the trust establishment. Similarly, the automated Edge-IoT orchestration eliminates
the manual configuration required for selection, deployment, monitoring, and controlling resources
during application execution, thereby satisfying high-level demands.

26
5.6. Redundancy and Fail-over Capabilities
Redundancy and fail-over capabilities constitute two important requirements for the reliable
functioning of Edge computing systems that support many critical business applications with low
latency and uninterrupted content delivery services. In order to develop reliable and resilient Edge
computing systems, redundancy and fail-over capabilities should be considered at the system de-
velopment stage with a built-in option.

5.7. Security
The heterogeneous nature of Edge computing systems makes security an important requirement
for network and application running. Security also constitutes a highly influential factor that mo-
tivates the consumers to embrace these new Edge computing systems. Due to the employment of
Edge computing systems for applications that require intensive processing, the use of the wireless
network and usage of these systems physically by different users increases the risk of intrusion,
unauthorized access, and a variety of security attacks [85, 86]. Strong and robust security mech-
anisms with advanced and efficient cryptographic schemes are required for both applications and
network to ensure the success of these Edge computing systems. To enable authorizing/trusted ac-
cess control requires an secure protocol for authentication of applications and mobile devices. Thus,
when dealing with the security of Edge computing systems, the common security requirements of
availability, authenticity, confidentiality and data integrity should be achieved before deployment,
however, without compromising the performance of applications running on these Edge computing
systems.

6. Open Challenges
The complexity of these Edge computing systems has given rise to a number of technical chal-
lenges, such as mobility management, security and privacy, scalability, heterogeneity, reliability,
and resource management. There are some of the other important challenges that are still needed
to be resolved. Table 5 contains the open challenges and factors along with potential guidelines to
resolve the mentioned challenge.

6.1. User0 s Trust on Edge computing systems

The success of any technology is positively linked with consumer acceptance. Trust is regarded
as one of the most important factors for the acceptance and adoption of these Edge systems by
the users. As highlighted in the literature, security and privacy are among the basic challenges
faced by Edge computing systems/ technologies. Since trust of a consumer is closely associated
with the security and privacy of the technologies and thus, if security and privacy of user0 s data
is not addressed well, it will definitely shatter the trust of a consumer, leading to non-acceptance
of these edge systems/ technologies. Therefore, research efforts are required to develop consumer
trust models for the adoption of Edge computing systems. A recently proposed consumer trust
model [87, 88] highlights the influential factors (including security and privacy requirements) that

27
 Table 5: Open challenges and guidelines
Challenges Causes Guidelines
User0 s Trust on Edge comput- (a) Lack of security and The influential factors of Consumer trust e.g., security and
ing systems privacy-preserving mecha- privacy, can be adopted to deal with challenges in stimulating
nisms the consumer0 s trust upon Edge computing systems.
Dynamic and Agile Pricing (a) High QoS requirements, Considering the three important factors e.g., resource avail-
Models (b) Inappropriate pricing mod- ability, frequency and duration of resource usage by consumers
els, (c) Service provider0 s high can help in developing dynamic pricing models.
cost.
Service Discovery, Service De- (a) Intermitted connectivity The mobility management for wireless networks and Service
livery and Mobility due to mobility, (b) Non- discovery for peer to peer networks can be used as guidelines.
accessibility of local resources,
(c) Immature security policies.
Collaborations between Het- (a) Heterogeneous architec- The interoperability and collaborations among ubiquitous sys-
erogeneous Edge computing tures, (b) Interoperability tems can be used as guidelines.
Systems problems, (c) Data privacy
issues, (e) Deficiencies in terms
of load balancing.
Low-Cost Fault tolerant de- (a) High availability, (b) Data Anomaly detection and predictive maintenance through ma-
ployment models integrity, (c) disaster recovery. chine Learning can help in providing low-cost fault tolerance.

Security (a) Involvement of distributed Salient features of blockchain technology, e.g., tamper-proof,
data processing, (b) Indispens- redundant, and self-healing, can help to mitigate important
able requirements of Edge com- security threats. Additionally, quantum cryptography based
puting, e.g., distributed ar- solutions can also be helpful.
chitecture, immense data pro-
cessing capabilities, location-
awareness, and mobility sup-
port.

stimulate the consumer0 s trust for adoption and usage of IoT products that can be applied in Edge
computing systems.

6.2. Dynamic and Agile Pricing Models

The rapid growth of the Edge computing paradigm has opened up the need for dynamic pricing
models that can meet the changing expectations by striking a right balance between the customer’s
expectations of quality of service, less delay and price, and the service provider’s cost and operational
efficiency. It is a challenging task to develop dynamic and agile pricing models as one pricing model
may not be successful for the engagement of multiple customers. It is also challenging to provide
best-fit pricing models for heterogeneous Edge computing systems that can offer mutual benefits
for service providers and customers. However, the pricing model for cloud services [89] such as
”pay-as-you-go” can be used for developing dynamic pricing models for Edge computing systems.

6.3. Service Discovery, Service Delivery and Mobility

Edge computing-as-service helps the individual Edge computing system operators and service
providers to fulfil their customer demands with limited processing and memory resources, lower
revenue and infrastructure cost. The service discovery in distributed Edge computing systems

28
constitutes a challenging task given the increasing number of mobile devices that require services
simultaneously and uninterruptedly. This task becomes more challenging when delay is involved
in discovering and selecting the other available services and resources. The automatic and user-
transparent discovery of appropriate Edge computing nodes according to required resources in
heterogeneous Edge computing systems also poses a challenging task for service discovery mecha-
nisms. However, service discovery solutions proposed for peer-to-peer networks [90, 91] can help in
the design and development of effective user-transparent solutions for Edge computing systems.
Seamless service delivery constitutes an important mechanism that ensures the uninterrupted
and smooth migration of running an application between different Edge computing systems while
the consumer is moving [92]. Seamless service delivery with mobility also poses a challenging task
as mobility severely affects the different network parameters (latency, bandwidth, delay, and jitter)
which ultimately results in application performance degradation. In addition, the non-accessibility
of local resources for a mobile user from outside the network due to the implementation of different
security policies and billing methods also makes seamless service delivery challenging. The seamless
service delivery in the context of mobility poses a vital research problem that needs to be addressed.
Effective mobility management mechanisms capable of discovering available resources in a seamless
manner are required for supporting the seamless service delivery with mobility. In order to overcome
this issue, seamless handoff and mobility management solutions [93–95] for wireless networks, can
be used for effective design and development of seamless service delivery mechanisms in Edge
computing systems.

6.4. Collaborations between Heterogeneous Edge Computing Systems

The ecosystem of Edge computing systems consists of a collection of different heterogeneous
technologies such as Edge data servers (data centers) and different cellular networks (3G, 4G and
5G). Although this heterogeneous nature of the Edge computing network allows Edge devices to
access services through multiple wireless technologies such as WiFi, 3G, 4G and 5G, it makes the
collaboration between such multi-vendor systems a challenging task [96]. Also, interoperability,
synchronization, data privacy, load balancing, heterogeneous resource sharing and seamless service
delivery are among the factors which make collaboration between heterogeneous Edge comput-
ing systems challenging. The research efforts for interoperability and collaborations in ubiquitous
systems, such as reported in [97] can be used for designing and developing efficient collaboration
techniques among heterogeneous Edge computing systems.

6.5. Low-Cost Fault tolerant deployment models

Fault tolerance ensures the continuous operation of any system in the event of failure with
little or no human involvement. In Edge computing systems, fault tolerance is achieved through
fail-over and redundancy techniques in order to guarantee the high availability of services, data
integrity of critical business applications, and disaster recovery of the system in case of catastrophic
events by using servers in different physical locations, backup power supply batteries (UPS) and
equipment with harsh environmental resistance. However, it is very challenging to provide low-cost

29
fault tolerance deployment models in Edge computing since a remote backup server requires high
bandwidth and additional hardware which is very costly. Machine learning-based anomaly detection
or predictive maintenance-based systems for power supply batteries/UPS system constitute a cost-
effective solution. Predictive maintenance will avoid unscheduled downtime and will effectively
reduce the cost required for backup/redundant batteries and UPS.

6.6. Security
Although Edge computing has revolutionized Cloud computing systems by tackling latency is-
sues, it has brought along imperative challenges, especially in terms of security. Ensuring Edge
computing security has become a major challenge due to its distributed data processing. Moreover,
the distinctive characteristics of Edge computing such as location-awareness, distributed architec-
ture, requirement of mobility support and immense data processing, hinder the traditional security
mechanisms to be adopted in the Edge computing paradigm [98]. Security threats associated with
Edge computing can be classified into personal point of view (e.g., the user, network operator,
and third-party application provider); attribute point of view, (e.g., privacy, integrity, trust, at-
testation, verification, and measurement); and compliance, dealing with lawful access to data and
local regulations1 . In order to cope with the aforementioned security issues in Edge computing,
numerous indispensable solutions with respect to identity and authentication, access control sys-
tems, intrusion detection systems, privacy, trust management, visualization, and forensics, have to
be developed. The intrinsic characteristics of blockchain technology such as tamper-proof, redun-
dant, and self-healing [99–101], can help meet certain security objectives while it engenders new
challenges that have to be addressed. Additionally, quantum cryptography based solutions can also
be adopted in the Edge computing paradigm.

7. Conclusion
Edge computing envisions to bring services and utilities of Cloud computing closer to the end user
for ensuring fast processing of data-intensive applications. In this paper, we comprehensively studied
the fundamental concepts related to Cloud and Edge computing. We categorized and classified the
state-of-the-art in Edge computing (Cloudlets, Fog and Mobile Edge computing) according to the
application domain. The application domain areas include services such as real-time applications,
security, resource management, and data analytics. We presented key requirements that need to
be met in order to enable Edge computing. Furthermore, we identified and discussed several open
research challenges.
This study concludes that the state-of-the-art in Edge computing paradigm suffers from several
limitations due to imperative challenges remaining to be addressed. Those limitations can be
compensated by proposing suitable solutions and fulfilling the requirements such as dynamic billing

1
Accessed on: 17 December 2018 https://www.sdxcentral.com/edge/definitions/mec-security

30
mechanism, real time application support, joint business model for management and deployment,
resource management, scalable architecture, redundancy and fail-over capabilities, and security.
This study serves as an excellent material to future researchers to comprehend the Edge computing
paradigm and take the research forward to resolve the unaddressed issues. Our future research aims
to explore the research trends in Multi-access Edge computing networks.

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