Custom Network Protocol Stack for Communication Between Nodes in a Cloudlet System

Abstract

With the advent of internet of things (IoT), new network paradigms have emerged. One such technology is cloudlets. Cloudlets are being increasingly used in various IoT-based applications such as smart homes, smart cities, healthcare, and industrial automations. Cloudlets have an advantage of proximity to the end-device while offering services similar to the cloud. Existing cloudlets use IEEE 802.11 for communication between nodes. In this paper, the authors present a protocol customized for usage in cloudlets, which also considers various limitations of the node that constitute the cloudlet. The nodes on the cloudlet are generally constrained in terms of power and memory when compared to nodes on a cloud. The custom protocol also incorporates fault-tolerance, time synchronization, and factors such as task affinities for communication. The protocol proposed in this paper gave an excellent packet delivery ratio, the lowest being 91% even with increased bandwidth usage when compared to IEEE 802.11.