Emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications share the same characteristics of involving multiple processing components (i.e., function modules) and requiring a massive amount of data to be processed with low latency. To meet these needs, edge/fog computing has been proposed for next-generation mobile networks to migrate the computing from the cloud to the edge of the network. Thanks to the development of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), with which edge computing platform can virtualize function modules and deploy them on any edge devices to provide flexible services on the edge networks. However, such platform would need to deal with complicated function module calling relationship (i.e., call graph) of applications and user mobility, and both are not thoroughly considered by existing works of NFV and edge computing. In this paper, based on our previous idea of virtual local-hub (VLH), we propose a complete design of edge computing framework, which applies NFV technology on edge computing environment for IoT applications. To handle the complicated call graphs of IoT applications with better resource utilization, the VLH framework adapts the technologies of container-based virtualization and microservice architecture, which enables remote function module sharing on the edge computing environment. The framework includes the heuristic algorithm for function module allocation with the objective of minimizing total bandwidth consumption. We also present a design of protocols for system operations and mobility handling in the framework. Then we implement the framework on commodity hardware as a testbed. Via simulations under a large-scale environment with practical settings and experiments on the testbed under real-world scenarios, we demonstrate and verify the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed VLH framework for IoT application service provision.

中文翻译：

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面向边缘计算环境中物联网应用的基于 NFV 的服务框架

新兴的物联网 (IoT) 应用程序具有相同的特征，即涉及多个处理组件（即功能模块）并且需要以低延迟处理大量数据。为了满足这些需求，下一代移动网络提出了边缘/雾计算，将计算从云端迁移到网络边缘。得益于网络功能虚拟化（NFV）的发展，边缘计算平台可以将功能模块虚拟化并部署在任何边缘设备上，从而在边缘网络上提供灵活的服务。然而，这样的平台需要处理应用和用户移动性的复杂功能模块调用关系（即调用图），而现有的NFV和边缘计算工作都没有充分考虑。在本文中，基于我们之前的虚拟本地集线器 (VLH) 的想法，我们提出了一个完整的边缘计算框架设计，该框架将 NFV 技术应用于物联网应用的边缘计算环境。为了更好地处理物联网应用复杂的调用图，VLH框架采用了基于容器的虚拟化和微服务架构技术，实现了边缘计算环境下的远程功能模块共享。该框架包括用于功能模块分配的启发式算法，其目标是最小化总带宽消耗。我们还介绍了框架中系统操作和移动性处理的协议设计。然后我们在商品硬件上实现框架作为测试平台。