QoS-Aware Dynamic Cost Management Scheme for Sensors-as-a-Service

In this article, we study the problem of quality of service (QoS)-aware cost management of sensor-cloud comprising multiple sensor-cloud service providers (SCSPs) and sensor-owners. The rapid adaptation of the wireless sensor network (WSN) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology led to the conceptualization of the sensor-cloud infrastructure which primarily aims to reduce the complexities associated with operating WSN-based applications by rendering Sensors-as-a-Service (Se-aaS). However, the oligopolistic market scenario of sensor-cloud involving multiple SCSPs and sensor-owners significantly impacts its profitability and QoS. Thus, there is a need to explore the dynamics of this market competition elaborately in order to maintain the usability of sensor-cloud. The existing works fail to address the aforementioned issues in sensor-cloud. Hence, in this work, we analyze the interactions among the sensor-owners and the SCSPs using a game-theoretic approach. We propose a QoS-aware dynamic cost management scheme, named QUEST, to determine the optimal strategies of the various actors in sensor-cloud market. Through simulations, we observe that, using QUEST, the price paid by the end-users decreases by 10.31-20.43 percent and the revenue of sensor-owners improves by 66.83-89.94 percent. Moreover, QUEST ensures the service satisfaction of the end-users while optimally distributing the services among the SCSPs and the sensor-owners.