Efficient Cloudlet Deployment: Local Cooperation and Regional Proxy

In this paper, we consider various cloudlet server deployment problems. Our goal is to reduce the cloudlet system's expected response time for mobile application requests submitted to the cloudlet. We propose two novel cloudlet server deployment strategies to achieve this goal. The first one is called local cooperation strategy, where two or more nearby cloudlet servers can help each other process the application requests. The second one is called regional proxy strategy, where service providers choose to deploy a regional proxy server that can provide service to mobile users from a comparatively larger area, while the communication delay from mobile users to the regional proxy server is kept low. We demonstrate the advantages of the two strategies over the traditional flat deployment strategy and the recently proposed hierarchical deployment strategy. Simulation results also verify that two proposed deployment strategies have great potential in reducing system's expected response time.