Availability and Reliability Modeling of Mobile Cloud Architectures

In recent years, mobile cloud computing has attracted researchers and industries' interest since it maximizes gains with mobile computing in different areas, such as healthcare, sports, and business. However, the inherent challenges associated with mobile computing (e.g., battery provisioning and wireless network instability) may limit mobile cloud achievements. This paper provides an availability and reliability study of mobile clouds and evaluates distinct architectures and strategies. Our evaluation is based on hierarchical heterogeneous models and focuses on steady-state availability, reliability, annual downtime, and costs of implementation and provisioning of the cloud infrastructure. The results point out that service downtime may be significantly decreased by adopting actions such as spare batteries for mobile devices and the adoption of distinct redundancy strategies. We also propose a way to support decision-making considering private and public clouds by comparing some architectural choices while considering factors such as budget expenses for hardware purchases and power consumption. After 36 months, the private cloud has a cumulative cost that is smaller than the cost of a public cloud service.