A cloud service enhanced method supporting context-aware applications

Mobile cloud computing is emerging as a powerful platform for running demanding applications migrated from mobile devices to a remote cloud. For some real-time or urgent deadline-constrained applications, the migration process generates intolerable transmission latency. Cloudlets co-located with Access Points (APs) are considered as an efficient way to reduce such transmission latency. However, it is still a challenge to manage the cloudlets that have been deployed for fixed context-aware applications to achieve cost savings. In view of this challenge, a cloud service enhanced method supporting context-aware applications is proposed in this paper. Specifically, a cloudlet management principle is designed to provide a reference for cloudlet status judgment. Then a relevant cloud service enhanced method is proposed to decide which active cloudlets should be shut down. Finally, the experimental and analytical results demonstrate the validity of our proposed method.