Efficient Data Placement and Retrieval Services in Edge Computing

Edge computing is a new paradigm in which the computing and storage resources are placed at the edge of the Internet. Data placement and retrieval are fundamental services of edge computing when a network of edge servers collaboratively provide data storage. These services require short-latency and low-overhead implementation in network devices and load balance on edge servers. However existing methods such as distributed hash tables (DHTs) are not able to achieve efficient data placement and retrieval services in the edge computing environment. This paper presents GRED, an efficient data placement and retrieval service for edge computing, which is efficient in not only the load balance but also routing path lengths and forwarding table sizes. GRED utilizes the software defined networking paradigm to support a virtual-space based DHT with only one overlay hop. We implement GRED in a P4 prototype. Experimental results show that GRED uses <30% routing path lengths and achieves better load balance among edge servers compared to using Chord, a well-known DHT solution.