Process state synchronization for mobility support in mobile cloud computing

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) extends cloud services to the resource-constrained mobile devices. Compute-intensive mobile applications can be augmented using cloud either in client/server model or through cyber foraging. However, long or permanent network disconnections due to user mobility increase the execution time and in certain cases refrain the mobile devices from getting response back for the remotely performed execution. In this paper, we propose use of process state synchronization (PSS) as a mechanism to mitigate the impact of network disconnections on the service continuity of cloud-based interactive mobile applications. To validate the PSS-based execution, we develop a mathematical model that incorporates the disconnection and synchronization intervals, and mobile device capabilities along with that of cloud. The comparison with existing mechanisms shows that PSS reduces the execution time by upto 47% for intermittent network connectivity compared to COMET and by upto 35% for optimized VM-based offloading.