Move with Me: Scalably keeping virtual objects close to users on the move

The upcoming Cloud-Fog interplay is expected to grant service providers more degrees of freedom in the implementation and management of their service portfolios. However, recent advances in Mobile Internet have developed a growing need to support user mobility - as users move, the Fog counterparts of services that require close proximity may call for migration(s) to meet the desired quality of service (QoS). With the state-of-the-art virtualization technologies, next-generation Cloud/Fog services are being implemented in modular software (i.e., as a graph/chain of portable virtual objects (VOs)) that can be migrated around the Telco infrastructure, and yet scalability is still an open issue, especially with the inter-datacenter bulk live migration of VOs. In this perspective, a VO clustering and migration policy that jointly considers user proximity and inter-VO affinity is proposed to scalably support user mobility, while allowing service differentiation among users. Results confirm that introducing migrations improve the QoS to always meet or exceed the requirements, as compared to static service placement, and considering VO clusters as aggregate entities will initiate around 40% less migrations, on average - an improvement that increases with inter-VO affinity and could potentially simplify service management when supporting user mobility.