Towards Application-Aware Virtualization for Edge IoT Clouds

Abstract

We explore issues and challenges for application-aware virtualization in edge Internet-of-Things (IoT) clouds. Since a large number of IoT devices reside in network edges, it is necessary for a current edge computing technology to virtualize them not only as computational resources but also functional resources for achieving the goal of a specific service, which we call application-aware virtualization. This requires translation of abstract application requirements into IoT resource allocation policies using the knowledge of relationships between application layer semantics and underlying device functionalities and status. We implement a prototype for proof-of-concept and show that it is able to dynamically allocate and reallocate IoT resources to applications according to the application's requirements and contexts changes with a reasonably small processing overhead.