A game-theoretic approach to multi-objective resource sharing and allocation in mobile edge clouds

Mobile edge computing seeks to provide resources to different delay-sensitive applications. However, allocating the limited edge resources to a number of applications is a challenging problem. To alleviate the resource scarcity problem, we propose sharing of resources among multiple edge computing service providers where each service provider has a particular utility to optimize. We model the resource allocation and sharing problem as a multi-objective optimization problem and present a Cooperative Game Theory (CGT) based framework, where each edge service provider first satisfies its native applications and then shares its remaining resources (if available) with users of other providers. Furthermore, we propose an O(N) algorithm that provides allocation decisions from the core, hence the obtained allocations are Pareto optimal and the grand coalition of all the service providers is stable. Experimental results show that our proposed resource allocation and sharing framework improves the utility of all the service providers compared with the case where the service providers are working alone (no resource sharing). Our O(N) algorithm reduces the time complexity of obtaining a solution from the core by as much as 71.67% when compared with the Shapley value.