An Efficient Algorithm for Service Function Chains Reconfiguration in Mobile Edge Cloud Networks

Abstract

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) supports ultra-low latency and high-bandwidth services as an emerging network architecture by deploying servers at the edge of the network to provide computing and storage resources. Along with the MEC technology, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) provisions Service Function Chains (SFC) on MEC servers to improve user service experience and achieve fast access to the mobile user. However, users are constantly moving in the edge network, and different users usually have different delay requirements for service requests. To guarantee the QoS of mobile users, it is necessary to migrate SFCs to an advisable edge server when users move across Base Stations (BS). This paper focuses on the SFCs reconfiguration scheme with resource capacity constraints in the MEC network to support the seamless migration of mobile user services. We first formalize the SFCs reconfiguration problem of the edge network as a mathematical model, which aims to minimize the end-to-end delay and operating costs of user services. Then, we convert the problem into an equivalent shortest path problem and design a Dynamic Programmingbased SFC Migration algorithm (DPSM). Finally, we conduct simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of the algorithm based on a real-world dataset. The experiment results show the effectiveness and efficiency of our algorithm.