Edge Computing provides mobile and Internet-of-Things (IoT) app vendors with a new distributed computing paradigm which allows an app vendor to deploy its app at hired edge servers distributed near app users at the edge of the cloud. This way, app users can be allocated to hired edge servers nearby to minimize network latency and energy consumption. A cost-effective edge user allocation (EUA) requires maximum app users to be served with minimum overall system cost. Finding a centralized optimal solution to this EUA problem is NP-hard. Thus, we propose EUAGame, a game-theoretic approach that formulates the EUA problem as a potential game. We analyze the game and show that it admits a Nash equilibrium. Then, we design a novel decentralized algorithm for finding a Nash equilibrium in the game as a solution to the EUA problem. The performance of this algorithm is theoretically analyzed and experimentally evaluated. The results show that the EUA problem can be solved effectively and efficiently.

中文翻译：

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边缘计算环境中用户分配的博弈论方法

边缘计算为移动和物联网 (IoT) 应用程序供应商提供了一种新的分布式计算范式，该范式允许应用程序供应商将其应用程序部署到分布在云边缘的应用程序用户附近的租用边缘服务器上。通过这种方式，应用程序用户可以分配到附近租用的边缘服务器，以最大限度地减少网络延迟和能源消耗。具有成本效益的边缘用户分配 (EUA) 要求以最低的整体系统成本为最多的应用程序用户提供服务。为这个 EUA 问题找到一个集中的最优解是 NP 难的。因此，我们提出了 EUAGame，这是一种将 EUA 问题表述为潜在博弈的博弈论方法。我们分析了博弈并表明它承认纳什均衡。然后，我们设计了一种新颖的去中心化算法，用于在游戏中寻找纳什均衡作为 EUA 问题的解决方案。对该算法的性能进行了理论分析和实验评估。结果表明，EUA问题可以得到有效和高效的解决。