Energy-Efficient Dynamic Traffic Offloading and Reconfiguration of Networked Data Centers for Big Data Stream Mobile Computing: Review, Challenges, and a Case Study

Big data stream mobile computing is proposed as a paradigm that relies on the convergence of broadband Internet mobile networking and real-time mobile cloud computing. It aims at fostering the rise of novel self-configuring integrated computing-communication platforms for enabling in real time the offloading and processing of big data streams acquired by resource-limited mobile/wireless devices. This position article formalizes this paradigm, discusses its most significant application opportunities, and outlines the major challenges in performing real-time energy-efficient management of the distributed resources available at both mobile devices and Internet-connected data centers. The performance analysis of a small-scale prototype is also included in order to provide insight into the energy vs. performance trade-off that is achievable through the optimized design of the resource management modules. Performance comparisons with some state-of-the-art resource managers corroborate the discussion. Hints for future research directions conclude the article.