Page 16 - ITU Journal Future and evolving technologies – Volume 2 (2021), Issue 2

ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies, Volume 2 (2021), Issue 2

order to achieve ef icient and seamless communication allocated for transmission over the air, to 3G uni‑
in MCC; besides, the security and privacy of data must be versal mobile telecommunication systems, 4G Long
maintained as well. The main contribution of this study Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G core network [3]. The
is to present an evaluation of the existing techniques for mobile network architecture consists of UE or a
seamless communication in MCC, a classi ication of the mobile device, radio access network, core network,
different solutions, and future directions for research by inter‑network and radio channel. In [4], UEs can be
taking into account current technological advances. connected with multiple links through mobile net‑
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 works and/or satellite; if a satellite module is not
presents background information including an architec‑ integrated into the UE, then external satellite com‑
ture overview, performance metrics and resource man‑ munication devices are used. MNs are linked to the
agement of MCC. Section 3 describes the related work and Internet, they also provide Internet access to their
Section 4 outlines existing techniques and solutions for users. Thus, the UE receives cloud services through
achieving seamless communication. In Section 5, we dis‑ the Internet.
cuss the challenges and future research directions; then, • Access Point (AP): APs are edge devices that are con‑
the conclusion is given in Section 6 of the paper.
nected to Internet service providers and provide an
Internet connectivity to mobile devices through Wi‑
2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Fi. Once mobile devices are connected to the Inter‑

2.1 Overview of mobile cloud computing ar‑ net, they can access cloud services. APs are com‑
chitecture monly used to access a cloud as they provide a Wi‑
Fi‑based connection, which has lower latency com‑
A mobile cloud computing environment consists of a pared to MN.
cloud serverstructureand mobile networkstructure. Mo‑ From Hoang T. Dinh et al. [2], the communication between
bile UEs communicate with the cloud server through a the UE and cloud environment in network systems prior
mobile network. Mobile device data and services are to 5G and LTE is done as follows. The UE’s requests and
migrated to the edge cloud to improve the performance information are transmitted to the processors of the data
of the real‑time intensive mobile applications. For the centers through the edges that are connected to servers
cloud to achieve smooth service provision, a very well de‑ responding to mobile network services’ requests. Ser‑
ined MCC architecture is needed. Furthermore, achiev‑ vices such as authentication, authorization, speci ic band‑
ing seamless communication in MCC environments re‑ width and pay‑as‑you‑go‑based Internet services are pro‑
quires an architecture that allows effortless computation vided to mobile users by mobile service operators or In‑
of loading of data and computation‑intensive tasks on the ternet service providers. Requests are then delivered to
edge servers. the cloud through the Internet; these requests are pro‑
The MCC stakeholders ecosystem involves different par‑ cessed by controllers in the cloud to provide mobile users
takers such as mobile users, network operators, Internet the appropriate services.
Service Providers (ISP), application services and Cloud Fig. 1 illustrates the difference between cloud computing
Service Providers (CSP). These partakers are all intercon‑ communications as a traditional cloud computing archi‑
nected through several networks from the edge to the tecture in Fig. 1(a) and as a hierarchical 5G‑enabled MEC
cloud’s data centers. Mobile users are the consumers that architecture in Fig. 1(b). The traditional cloud computing
represent the mobile terminal of the cloud; network op‑ paradigm faces substantial challenges, such as great com‑
erators and ISP provide network infrastructure and data munication overhead or long latency, due to the limited
services to access the cloud environment, that is the In‑ computational capability of IoT devices and geographi‑
frastructure as a Service (IaaS) part of the cloud. Appli‑ cally remote servers from the cloud, which is hard to sat‑
cation developers and CSP offer a software licensing and isfy the requirement of delay‑sensitive tasks or resource‑
delivery model in which users purchase their software li‑ constrained IoT sensing devices. To solve those prob‑
censes on a subscription basis and use the software on the lems in traditional cloud computing with mobile users,
platform. Such business model is known as Software as a the edge cloud was proposed as an extension of cloud
Service (SaaS) [2]. computing. In this environment, the edge computing net‑
work was designed with cellular and other mobile de‑
MCC Networking: There are two ways through which vices, which enables computation and communication re‑
mobile devices can access cloud services, either via a Mo‑ sources to be dispersed to the edge network closer to the
bile Network (MN) or Access Points (AP). end users, to provide ef icient and low‑latency services.
Moreover, 5G mobile networks present slightly different
• Mobile Network (MN): It provides a connection be‑ architecture and functionality, such that edge devices in‑
tween the mobile device and the cloud environment cluding base stations and wireless access points provide
through base stations or satellites. It has evolved rich computation and storage resources that are suf icient
from the GSM (2G Global System for mobile commu‑ to enable ubiquitous mobile computing [4]. 5G systems
nications) that uses circuit‑switched with ixed slots support communications, computing, control and content

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