Data Sharing in Virtual Edge Computing using Coded Caching

Multi-access edge computing (MEC) has been identified as a powerful concept for offloading computational tasks and for storing popular data in close proximity of end users; avoiding frequent communication to a back-end cloud server. In the context of vehicular applications, similar functionality can be provided by vehicles collaboratively offering storage and computational resources on-board, i.e., a virtual MEC concept. Data management in a virtual edge is particularly challenging due to the high degree of mobility. Coded caching is a concept to store data on distributed systems in form of fragments. When needed, these fragments are transmitted to the requesting node in a coded form so that the total number of transmissions is reduced (i.e., optimizing for reduced download times and reduced resource utilization). In this paper, we introduce a new protocol for data sharing among vehicles participating in virtual edge computing using coded caching. Our results show that coded caching improve the efficiency of data sharing by up to 50% in a virtual edge computing environment.