Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is an emerging network paradigm that provides cloud and IT services at the point of access of the network. Such proximity to the end user translates into ultra-low latency and high bandwidth, while, at the same time, it alleviates traffic congestion in the network core. Due to the need to run servers on edge nodes (e.g., an LTE-A macro eNodeB), a key element of MEC architectures is to ensure server portability and low overhead. A possible tool that can be used for this purpose is Docker, a framework that allows easy, fast deployment of Linux containers. This paper addresses the suitability of Docker in MEC scenar- ios by quantifying the CPU consumed by Docker when running two different containerized services: multiplayer gam- ing and video streaming. Our tests, run with varying numbers of clients and servers, yield different results for the two case studies: for the gaming service, the overhead logged by Docker increases only with the number of servers; con- versely, for the video streaming case, the overhead is not affected by the number of either clients or servers.
@cite_4: Cloud computing makes extensive use of virtual machines because they permit workloads to be isolated from one another and for the resource usage to be somewhat controlled. In this paper, we explore the performance of traditional virtual machine (VM) deployments, and contrast them with the use of Linux containers. We use KVM as a representative hypervisor and Docker as a container manager. Our results show that containers result in equal or better performance than VMs in almost all cases. Both VMs and containers require tuning to support I Ointensive applications. We also discuss the implications of our performance results for future cloud architectures.
@cite_3: 5G network architecture and its functions are yet to be defined. However, it is generally agreed that cloud computing, network function virtualization (NFV), and software defined networking (SDN) will be key enabling technologies for 5G. Indeed, putting all these technologies together ensures several advantages in terms of network configuration flexibility, scalability, and elasticity, which are highly needed to fulfill the numerous requirements of 5G. Furthermore, 5G network management procedures should be as simple as possible, allowing network operators to orchestrate and manage the lifecycle of their virtual network infrastructures (VNIs) and the corresponding virtual network functions (VNFs), in a cognitive and programmable fashion. To this end, we introduce the concept of “Anything as a Service” (ANYaaS), which allows a network operator to create and orchestrate 5G services on demand and in a dynamic way. ANYaaS relies on the reference ETSI NFV architecture to orchestrate and manage important services such as mobile Content Delivery Network as a Service (CDNaaS), Traffic Offload as a Service (TOFaaS), and Machine Type Communications as a Service (MTCaaS). Ultimately, ANYaaS aims for enabling dynamic creation and management of mobile services through agile approaches that handle 5G network resources and services.
@cite_8: High latency, network congestion and network bottleneck are some of problems in cloud computing. Moving from centralized to decentralized paradigm, Edge computing could offload the processing to the edge which indirectly reduces application response time and improves overall user experience. This paper evaluate Docker, a container based technology as a platform for Edge Computing. 4 fundamental criteria were evaluated 1) deployment and termination, 2) resource & service management, 3) fault tolerance and 4) caching. Based on our evaluation and experiment Docker provides fast deployment, small footprint and good performance which make it potentially a viable Edge Computing platform.
Containerization systems for service delivery in 5G networks is a widely studied topic. In particular, works such as @cite_8 evaluate Docker as a platform for Edge Computing concluding that it provides fast deployment, small footprint and good performance. Other studies, e.g., @cite_3 , claim that distributed service delivery will be one of the hottest topics in 5G networks, and demonstrate the efficiency of Docker as containerization system in the implementation of Virtual Network Functions. Furthermore, Linux containers have been widely analyzed and compared against Virtual Machines under multiple aspects: @cite_4 explores the performance of traditional VM deployments, and compares this approach to the use of Linux containers. In line with our results, @cite_4 also demonstrates that containers lead to equal or better performance than VMs in all cases.