Mist-Edge-Cloud (MEC) Computing: An Integrated Computing Architecture

The present-day context of computation is driven by the voluminous data being generated and requirement of fast decision making. Internet of Things (IoT) is one such technology which thrives on such computational requirement. Cloud computing emerged as a revolutionary technology providing on demand usage, minimal operational costs and enhanced security mechanisms. However, long distance between user devices and cloud server creates some amount of delay in the computing network. Therefore, with large scale shift of capabilities and resources over the cloud, limitations and drawbacks of the technology have come to the forefront with technologies like IoT finding it difficult to work with the cloud computing architecture degrading users Quality of Services (QoS) and Quality of Experiences (QoE). The study reviews traditional cloud computing network and proposes a network architecture integrating cloud, mist and edge computing methods extending computational and communication capabilities right up to user devices thus improving the QoS. The study also involves carrying out an experimental analysis of the integrated approach to further ascertain practicability of the proposed model in existing networks.