A Dynamic Priority Service Provision Scheme for Delay-Sensitive Applications in Fog Computing

The massive numbers of connected devices in the IoT era impose a real challenge in the management of both communication and computing resources. Moreover, the competition of those devices on the limited resources will inherently raise the delay experienced by users. To this end, we propose a priority service provision scheme to reduce the latency experienced by delay-sensitive services. Here, incoming tasks are classified into delay-sensitive and delay-insensitive whereby priority classes are assigned using a matching theory approach. Then, the queue delay experienced by each class is investigated at the computing node i.e., the edge device, and the communication node i.e., the small base station (SBS). To maintain high quality of experience (QoE) in regard with time delay for all tasks, a dynamic priority scheme is proposed and controlled using a heuristic algorithm. The goal of the dynamic priority scheme is to minimize the delay at the communication node (SBS) for users requesting non-computing tasks (e.g., regular phone calls) by promoting their class when the delay exceeds a threshold value. The combined delay experienced at both communication and computing nodes is compared using the prioritized, non-prioritized, and the dynamic priority schemes. Results show that undertaking a dynamic priority service provision can achieve significant reduction in the amount of delay experienced by users.