Multi-Access Edge Computing Handover Strategies, Management, and Challenges: A Review

The deployment and operation of Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) at the network edge provides low latency computing and storage services for end user devices. Support for device mobility is a functional requirement for MEC and a handover strategy that supports the movement of device and application state between MEC nodes is an underlying technology. The handover strategy utilizes an MEC node selection technique and a handover technique to provide a smooth transition between one MEC node to another. Research into MEC handover strategies has focused on algorithms, queuing, and other considerations. The migration of the MEC device and application state is a complex process that requires resource allocation in the destination MEC node that could involve provisioning application instances and, in some scenarios, support for containers or Virtual Machines to be received from the originating MEC node. This paper reviews MEC handover strategies and provides a description of the MEC reference architecture and proposed handover algorithms and techniques found in the literature. MEC handover challenges and gaps in the body of knowledge are discussed to provide guidance for future work.