Service-based, Multi-Provider, Fog Ecosystem with Joint Optimization of Request Mapping and Response Routing

Digital transformation is increasingly reliant on service -based operations in fog networks. The latter is a geo-dispersed form of the cloud, extending resources closer to end-users for improved privacy and reduced latency. The dispersion leverages diversity of compute-network capacities and energy prices, while promotes the coexistence of multiple providers. This drives variation in operational cost, coupled with limited information sharing across providers. Consequently, there is a critical need for an orchestration solution that preserves autonomy and optimizes operational cost across domains, while meeting service requirements. This article proposes a novel service-based fog management and network orchestrator (sbMANO), which utilizes service metadata in enabling multi-provider resource management. The sbMANO is empowered with a novel optimization algorithm for service-based joint request mapping and response routing. The algorithm acts on partial information and preserves the edge for delay-critical services. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated analytically for delay-aware and delay-agnostic variants. The results show that both achieve near-optimal performance in maximizing user satisfaction with minimum operational cost. Furthermore, the delay-aware variant outperforms the agnostic counterpart, with higher user satisfaction and lower operational cost.