Effects of Service Function Relocation on Application-level Delay in Multi-access Edge Computing

Multi-access edge computing (MEC) is expected to mitigate delays and more flexibly provide services by virtualizing service functions and deploying them closer to users. However, live migration of virtual machine (VM) that enables relocation of service functions for flexible service provision may cause temporary delays or packet loss. For future deployment of MEC, it is therefore important to investigate whether responsiveness improves as expected, and to evaluate the effects of service function relocation on application-level delay experienced by users. In this paper, we investigate application-level delay in a MEC environment for services such as video live streaming. Experiments in the MEC environment constructed within our laboratory reveal that application-level delays are reduced by 15– 30%, and that application-level delay is improved by relocating remote service functions at an edge close to the user. We also reveal that delays and packet loss due to VM live migration are very temporary, confirming that service function relocation is useful for maintaining application-level delay.