An Optimal Task Assignment Strategy in Cloud-Fog Computing Environment

• Main Authors: Jung-Fa Tsai, Chun-Hua Huang, Ming-Hua Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: task assignment strategy; cloud-fog computing; mathematical programming model; linear transformation technique
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/4/1909

With the advent of the Internet of Things era, more and more emerging applications need to provide real-time interactive services. Although cloud computing has many advantages, the massive expansion of the Internet of Things devices and the explosive growth of data may induce network congestion and add network latency. Cloud-fog computing processes some data locally on edge devices to reduce the network delay. This paper investigates the optimal task assignment strategy by considering the execution time and operating costs in a cloud-fog computing environment. Linear transformation techniques are used to solve the nonlinear mathematical programming model of the task assignment problem in cloud-fog computing systems. The proposed method can determine the globally optimal solution for the task assignment problem based on the requirements of the tasks, the processing speed of nodes, and the resource usage cost of nodes in cloud-fog computing systems.