Server placement in mobile cloud computing: A comprehensive survey for edge computing, fog computing and cloudlet

The growing technology of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile telecommunications has led to the special attention of cloud service providers (CSPs) to mobile cloud computing (MCC). Due to the limitations in processing power, storage space and energy capacity of mobile devices, cloud resources can be moved to the edge of the network to improve the quality of service (QoS). Server placement is a crucial emerging problem in both typical and edge types of MCC, different proposed methods of which are reviewed and evaluated in this paper. Proper placement of servers leads to more efficient utilization of these servers, reduces their response time and optimizes their energy consumption. A variety of techniques and approaches, including machine learning-based techniques, evolutionary models, optimization algorithms, heuristics and meta-heuristics have been employed by different server placement methods of the literature to find the optimal deployment map of servers. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of these server placement methods in edge computing, fog computing and cloudlet, investigates their various aspects, dimensions and objectives, and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, open challenges for server placement in MCC are provided, and future research directions are also explained and discussed.