DIMON: Distributed Monitoring System for Decentralized Edge Clouds in Guifi.net

Abstract

Community-built telecommunication networks such as Guifi.net demonstrate how end users can actively collaborate in the self-provision of network services, for instance by operating a self-organized distributed monitoring system. Network monitoring is performed by many small servers at the users' premises but data are only accessible via a centralized interface. Besides, due to network partitions and churn of the monitoring servers, failures in the monitoring system are frequent, leaving parts of the network unmonitored. Distributed databases are a promising solution for data replication under network partition condition, but they suffer from a trade-off between data consistency and availability. Furthermore, these databases are used in data centers with abundant computing resources, not in light edge networks. In this work we present DIMON, a reliable edge-based, eventually-consistent monitoring system that leverages CRDT-based data structures implemented in AntidoteDB. Conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs) are able to converge to a consistent state in environments with network partitions as those found in edge networks. Our results give insights on the load of AntidoteDB on edge devices under different scenarios of read and write operations. The experiments carried out in a production network with a real system implemented contribute to the research community's knowledge about the available technologies for a consistent replicated data storage layer to support edge computing clouds.