Department of Computer Science and Engineering (R)

COURSE NAME: EDGE COMPUTING

COURSE CODE: 20CS3253RB
Topic:

Session - 9
Optimization Problems in Fog and Edge Computing

By: Dr. Vithya Ganesan

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 Optimization Problems in Fog and Edge
Computing
• In cloud computing, there has been an evolution for several years
from centralized architectures (one or few large data centers) toward
increasing decentralization (several smaller data centers), which is still
continuing, and fog / edge computing is a natural next step on this
evolution trajectory [2]. Geographically distributed data centers lead
to decreased latency for applications involving distributed data
sources and sinks (e.g., users or sensors / actuators), since each data
source / sink can be served by a nearby data center. Other benefits
include improved fault tolerance as well as access to green energy
sources of limited capacity [3].

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 • Optimization plays a crucial role in fog computing. For example,
minimizing latency and energy consumption are just as important as
maximizing security and reliability.
• Because of the high complexity of typical fog deployments (many
different types of devices, with many different types of interactions)
and their dynamic nature (mobile devices coming and going, devices
or network connections failing permanently or temporarily etc.), it
has become virtually impossible to ensure the best solution by design.
• Rather, the best solution should be determined using appropriate
optimization techniques.

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 • Research on fog computing is still in its infancy. Some specific
optimization problems have been defined, but in an ad hoc manner,
independently from each other. As a result, it is difficult to compare or
combine different approaches, because they usually address different
variants or facets of the same problem and such subtle differences
are often not apparent. (Earlier, we have witnessed a similar situation
in cloud computing research as well [6, 7]). In addition, the quality
and level of detail of existing problem formulations is quite
heterogeneous

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 • The concept of fog computing was introduced by Cisco in 2012 as a
means to extend cloud computing capabilities to the network edge,
thus enabling more advanced applications [8]. Since then, an
increasing number of research papers have been published on fog
computing.

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 Optimization

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 Optimization

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 Optimization

• A tuple (v1, …, vn) that satisfies (1) and (2) is called a solution of the
problem. Thus, the goal is to find the solution with highest f value. At
least, this is the case for maximization problems (as defined above).
For a minimization problem, the goal is to find the solution with
lowest f value, which is equivalent to finding the solution that
maximizes the objective function f ′ = − f . In case of minimization
problems, the objective function is often called cost function because
it represents some – real or fictive – cost that needs to be minimized.

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 Optimization

• Deriving a formalized optimization problem from a practical problem

is a nontrivial process, in which the variables, their domains, the
constraints, and the objective function must be defined. In particular,
there are usually many different ways to formalize a practical
problem, leading to different formal optimization problems.
Formalizing the problem is also a process of abstraction, in which
some nonessential details are suppressed or some simplifying
assumptions are made

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 Optimization

• Let the objective functions be f 1,…, f q, where the aim is to maximize

all of them. Since there is generally no solution that maximizes all of
the objective functions simultaneously, some modification is
necessary to obtain a well-defined optimization problem. The most
common approaches for that are the following

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 Pareto-optimal solutions

• Looking for Pareto-optimal solutions. A solution is :-

• (v1, …, vn ) dominates another solution
• (v′ 1, …, v′ n), if f s(v1, …, vn) ≥ f s(v′ 1, …, v′ n) holds for all
• s = 1,…, q, and fs(v1,…, vn) > fs(v′ 1,…, v′ n)
• holds for at least one value of s, i.e., (v1, …, vn) is at least as good as
(v′ 1,…, v′ n) regarding each objective and it is strictly better regarding
at least one objective. A solution is called Pareto-optimal if it is not
dominated by any other solution.

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 • In other words, a Pareto-optimal solution can only be improved with
regard to an objective if it is worsened regarding some other
objective. Different Pareto-optimal solutions of a problem represent
different trade-offs between the objectives, but all of them are
optimal in the above sense

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 • fog computing promises significantly increased compute capabilities,
enabling the execution of compute-intensive tasks quickly and
without major impact on energy consumption of the device.
Therefore, optimization relating to execution time and energy
consumption are also fundamental aspects of fog computing

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 Formal Modeling Framework for Fog
Computing
• Higher layers represent higher computational capacity, but at the
same time also higher distance – and thus higher latency – from the
end devices. On the highest layer is the cloud with its virtually
unlimited, high-performance, and cost- and energy-efficient
resources. The middle layer consists of a set of edge resources:
machines offering compute services near the network edge, e.g. in
base stations, routers, or small, geographically distributed data
centers of telecommunication providers. The edge resources are all
connected to the cloud. Finally, the lowest layer contains the end
devices like mobile phones or IoT devices. Each end device is
connected to one of the edge resources

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 THANK YOU

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