Cost-Benefit Analysis of Pricing Models in Cloudlets

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) emerged as a network paradigm for integrating mobile technology with cloud computing. However, with the recent proliferation of mobile applications as well as the resource constraint nature of mobile devices, latency and energy became relevant issues that needed to be addressed in MCC. To this end, an intermediate layer known as the cloudlet was designed to address these challenges. However, recent studies indicate that aside latency and energy related challenges, billing and pricing are essential aspects of cloudlet technology. Hence in this study we first investigate existing cloud based pricing models with the aim of adopting each model to suite cloudlet based scenarios. To this end, we explore the use of a cost-benefit approach for analyzing the performance of pricing models in cloudlets. Hypothetical results show that fixed pricing models are better suited for cloudlets with respect to fairness from both customer and provider perspectives.