Cloud service-aware location update in mobile cloud computing

Mobile devices are becoming the primary platforms for many users who always roam around when accessing the cloud computing services. From this, the cloud computing is integrated into the mobile environment by introducing a new paradigm, mobile cloud computing. In the context of mobile computing, the battery life of mobile device is limited, and it is important to balance the mobility performance and energy consumption. Fortunately, cloud services provide both opportunities and challenges for mobility management. Taking the activities of cloud services accessing into consideration, the authors propose a service-aware location update mechanism, which can detect the presence and location of the mobile device without traditional periodic registration update. Analytic model and simulation are developed to investigate the new mechanism. The results demonstrate that the service-aware location update management can reduce the location update times and handoff signalling, which can efficiently save power consumption for mobile devices.