Recent years have seen considerable interest in mobile cloud computing and edge cloud computing. This paper presents a mobile Intercloud system for supporting mobile cloud computing in general and edge cloud computing in particular. In essence, a mobile user with a mobile terminal can set up a virtual mobile terminal with applications and data in a central/home cloud. The virtual mobile terminal can facilitate task and computation offloading and other functions. Moreover, when a mobile terminal joins an edge cloud, the virtual mobile terminal (including required applications and data) can be migrated to enhance system efficiency and the user experience (e.g., shorter access delays). An experimental prototype has been developed for evaluating certain basic object transfer functions. To support the application transfer function, we formulate both finite- and infinite-horizon Markov decision models to determine decision policies (i.e., should an application be transferred to an edge cloud). The transfer decision depends on various factors, including transfer cost, duration associated with the edge cloud, usage probability, and usage cost in the central cloud and edge cloud. Based on the models, we obtain closed-form solutions for the decision policies, which can be expressed in meaningful formulas to provide useful insights for edge cloud computing in general. To evaluate the mobile Intercloud system for edge cloud computing, we conducted extensive evaluations, including experimental evaluation for testing the basic functions and protocols, analytical evaluation for studying the analytical models, and simulation evaluation for analyzing performance in a multiuser and multicloud environment in particular. The experimental, simulation, and analytical results provide useful insights into the design and development of the mobile Intercloud system for edge cloud computing as well as decision policies for application transfer.

中文翻译：

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面向边缘云计算的移动云间系统

近年来，人们对移动云计算和边缘云计算产生了浓厚的兴趣。本文提出了一个移动 Intercloud 系统，用于支持一般的移动云计算，特别是边缘云计算。本质上，拥有移动终端的移动用户可以在中央/家庭云中建立一个包含应用程序和数据的虚拟移动终端。虚拟移动终端可以方便任务和计算卸载等功能。此外，当移动终端加入边缘云时，可以迁移虚拟移动终端（包括所需的应用程序和数据）以提高系统效率和用户体验（例如，更短的访问延迟）。已经开发了用于评估某些基本对象传递函数的实验原型。为支持应用传输功能，我们制定了有限和无限水平马尔可夫决策模型来确定决策策略（即，应用程序是否应该转移到边缘云）。转移决策取决于各种因素，包括转移成本、与边缘云相关的持续时间、使用概率以及中心云和边缘云的使用成本。基于这些模型，我们获得了决策策略的封闭式解决方案，这些解决方案可以用有意义的公式表示，从而为一般的边缘云计算提供有用的见解。为了评估边缘云计算的移动Intercloud系统，我们进行了广泛的评估，包括测试基本功能和协议的实验评估，研究分析模型的分析评估，以及用于分析多用户和多云环境中的性能的模拟评估。实验、模拟和分析结果为边缘云计算的移动 Intercloud 系统的设计和开发以及应用程序转移的决策策略提供了有用的见解。