REACT: A solidarity-based elastic service resource reallocation strategy for Multi-access Edge Computing

The Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm promises to enhance network flexibility and scalability through resource virtualization. MEC allows telecom operators to fulfill the stringent and heterogeneous requirements of 5G applications via service deployment at the edge of the mobile network. However, current solutions to support MEC struggle to provide resource elasticity since MEC infrastructures have limited resources. The coexistence of many heterogeneous services on the distributed MEC infrastructure makes the resource scarcity problem even more challenging than it already is in traditional networks. Services need distinct resource provisioning patterns due to their diverse requirements, and we may not assume an extensive MEC infrastructure that can accommodate an arbitrary number of services. To address these aspects, we present REACT: a MEC-suppoRted sElf-adaptive elAstiCiTy mechanism that leverages resource provisioning among different services running on a shared MEC environment. REACT adopts an adaptive and solidarity-based strategy to redistribute resources from over-provisioned services to under-provisioned services in MEC environments. REACT is an alternative strategy to avoid service migration due to resource scarcity. Real testbed results show that REACT outperforms Kubernetes’ elasticity strategy by accomplishing up to 18.88% more elasticity events, reducing service outages by up to 95.1%, reducing elasticity attempts by up to 95.36%, and reducing over-provisioned resources by up to 33.88%, 38.41%, and 73% for CPU cycles, RAM and bandwidth resources, respectively. Finally, REACT reduces response time by up to 15.5%.