No abstract

A nearby virtual machine (VM) based cloudlet is proposed for mobile cloud computing (MCC) to enhance the performance of real-time resource-intensive mobile applications. Generally, when a mobile device (MD) discovers a cloudlet in the vicinity, it takes time to set up a VM inside the cloudlet before data offloading from the MD to the VM starts. The time between the discovery of the cloudlet and actual offloading of data is considered as the service initiation time. When multiple cloudlets are present in a nearby geographical location, initiating a service with each cloudlet may be frustrating for cloudlet users that moving from one location to another. In order to eliminate the delay caused by the service initiation time after moving away from the source cloudlet, this paper proposes a seamless live VM migration between neighbouring cloudlets. A seamless live VM migration is achieved with the prior knowledge of the migrating VM IP address in the destination cloudlet and more importantly with multipath TCP (MPTCP). We have performed a number of experiments to validate the proposed approach using Linux KVM hypervisor. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and also show performance improvement. Specifically, there is almost zero downtime at the destination cloudlet after the migration is completed.

Virtual machine (VM) based cloudlets are used in a cloud computing system to enhance the performance of resource-intensive applications. After a mobile device (MD) discovers a cloudlet in a vicinity, it takes a service initiation time (Ts) to setup a VM inside the cloudlet before data offloading from the MD to the VM starts. When more than one cloudlets are presented in a nearby geographical location, initiating a service with each cloudlets may be frustrating for the cloudlet users who change location frequently. In order to eliminate the delay caused by the Ts after the first cloudlet, this thesis proposes a seamless live VM migration between the neighbour cloudlet where the seamlessness is achieved by multipath TCP (MPTCP). In addition to MPTCP, the prior network configuration of the migrating VM with the destination network information helps to achieve a zero network downtime at the destination cloudlet after migration is completed. I am extremely grateful to go through a research experience which would not be possible without my principal supervisor Dr. Chung-Horng Lung who has given me the opportunity with lots of inspirational ideas, encouragement and patience throughout the course of this thesis. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my co-supervisor, Dr. Samuel A.Ajila, for his invaluable comments and ideas. I take this opportunity to express a deep sense of gratitude to our department computer network administrator, Jerry Buburuz who provided resources and resolved all the technical errors I faced during the lab environment setup. My appreciation also goes to the author of [CaCh2013], Catalin Nicutar who has answered all my questions and added a knowledge about MPTCP.Lastly, I thank St. Virgin Mary who has given me strength and heard all my prayers during the time of stress, my mother, Aynalem, who always believes in me even when I am falling apart, my beloved husband, Eyob, for his love, patience, and support, my daughter, sisters, brothers and friends for their love and encouragement.My love and respect to my families and friends are endless and immense.