Mobile Edge Computing for

Internet of Things
Fassahat Ullah Qureshi
Introduction
• Cloud computing (CC) is more and more used, including private/local and mixed
cloud development.

• However, traditional CC centralization (processing ,storage,..) may lead to some

limitations. (High Latency, real time applications)

• Novel services and applications like IoT Would be better served by edge
computing systems
Mobile Cloud Computing Architecture
Mobile Edge Computing
• Offers application developers and content providers cloud-computing capabilities
and an IT service environment at the edge of the mobile network.
• Other Terms used are Fog Computing, Cloudlets.
Advantages of MEC
• Proximity
• Ultra-low latency
• High bandwidth
• Real-time access to radio network information
• Location awareness
MEC Use Case Examples
High level comparison of MCC and Edge
computing concepts
Internet of things
• Mobile communication is no longer exclusive to smartphones and tablets.

• Almost any portable device can now be outfitted with electronics, software,
network connectivity, and sensors, allowing it to provide pervasive services, i.e.
communicate and share data with other devices.

• These new capabilities constitute one of the most innovative and disruptive
technological scenarios of today, the Internet of Things (IoT).
Traditional IOT Architecture
Mobile Edge Computing for IoTs

• IoT devices are expected to generate a significant amount of data as their use is found
everywhere .
• Deploying a number of fog (MEC) nodes in the network can locally collect, classify, and analyse
the raw IoT data streams, rather than transmitting them to the cloud.

• This can significantly alleviate the traffic in the core network and potentially speed up the IoT big
data process.

• Because the data processing is not handled by the IoT device, its power consumption can be
greatly reduced.

• Additional security measures could be provided by having the MEC encrypt the data before being
sent downstream.
Mobile Edge Computing for IoTs
• The MEC can also address the IoT device’s limited memory storage by logging the
data received from the end devices, aggregating the messages and logging them
into a local database.
Multi-Interface Base Stations in
Cellular Network
• A huge number of base stations (BSs), which have already been deployed in the
mobile network, provide high radio coverage.

• Distributed BSs have the potential to connect all IoT devices whether they are
moving or static.

• In order to support different data transmission requirements of IoT devices, each

BS may be equipped with multiple wireless interfaces.

• Potential deployment is to connect each BS to a fog node to process the

aggregated raw data streams
Multi-Interface Base Stations in Cellular Network
MEC Computing with IOT schemetic
Challenges in Implementing MEC
• Identifications between IoT Devices and Their Proxy VMs

• Proxy VM Mobility Management

• IoT Devices Migration Management

MEC in a IoT deployment for surveillance and
safety
• A local network of IoT sensor devices, e.g., video cameras, is connected to the
broadband mobile network (e.g., an LTE network) through the local IoT gateway.
• The video streams are conveyed to the ME host, where the IoT application for
video surveillance is running.
MEC for connected vehicles and moving IoT
devices
• IoT use cases require the devices to connect to the broadband mobile network,
and also to be able to move across different cells with mobility and session
continuity support. This can be the case of IoT systems utilizing drones, road
vehicles, and trains etc.
MEC for smart home
• In a smart home environment, an impressive amount of data is
produced for the consideration of data transportation pressure and
privacy protection, this data should be mostly consumed in the home.
• This feature makes the cloud computing paradigm unsuitable for a
smart home.
• MEC can be considered for a smart home with an edge gateway
running a specialized Mobile edge operating system in the home.
Advantages of MEC in Smart Home
• The things can be connected and managed easily in the home.

• The data can be processed locally to release the burdens for Internet
bandwidth.

• The edge computing paradigm can be flexibly expanded from a single

home to community, or even city scale to handle large quantity data
and ensure low latency.
MEC IOT Smart Home Architecture
Computation Offloading for Mobile Systems
• Mobile systems have limited resources, such as battery life, network bandwidth,
storage capacity, and processor performance.

• Sending heavy computation to resourceful servers and receiving the results from
these servers in known as computation offloading.

• Since offloading migrates computation to a more resourceful computer, it

involves making a decision regarding whether and what computation to migrate.
Computation Offloading to improve performance
• Offloading becomes an attractive solution for meeting response time
requirements on mobile systems as applications become increasingly
complex.

• For example, Context-aware computing—where multiple streams of

data from different sources like GPS, maps, accelerometers,
temperature sensors, etc need to be analysed together in order to
obtain real-time information about a user’s context.
Computation Offloading to improve performance
• We can divide a program into two parts: one part that must run on the mobile
system and the other part that may be offloaded.

• The first part may include user interface and the code that handles peripherals
(such as the mobile system’s camera).

• Let sm be the speed of the mobile system. Suppose w is the amount of

computation for the second part. The time to execute the second part on the
mobile system is
Computation Offloading to improve performance
• If the second part is offloaded to a server, sending the input data di takes
seconds at bandwidth B. (Assumptions: initial setup time for the network is
ignored, The size of the program is negligible, or the server may download the
program from another site through a high-speed network)

• Offloading can improve performance when execution, including computation and

communication, can be performed faster at the server. Let ss be the speed of the
server. The time to offload and execute the second part is
Computation Offloading to improve performance
• Offloading improves performance when

• This inequality holds for

• • large w: the program requires heavy computation.
• • large ss: the server is fast.
• • small di: a small amount of data is exchanged.
• • large B: the bandwidth is high.
Computation Offloading to improve Energy
• Suppose pm is the power on the mobile system. The energy to perform the task
can be obtained by

• Let pc be the power required to send data from the mobile system over the
network
• After sending the data, the system needs to poll the network interface while
waiting for the result of the offloaded computation. During this time, the power
consumption is pi. So the total power will be
Computation Offloading to improve Energy
• Offloading saves energy when

• The data (such as photographs and videos) may also reside in servers with high-
speed networks (such as Facebook.com and YouTube.com). Instead of
transmitting the data from the mobile system to the server, the mobile system
needs to provide links to the server and the server may download the data
directly from the hosting sites. In this case, the bandwidth B can be substantially
higher, allowing offloading to improve performance and save energy
Future Work
• Research MEC with IOT in relation to computation offloading