Cited by 160IoT and Edge/Fog ComputingCloud Computing and Resource ManagementEnergy Efficiency in Computing

A Distributed Deep Reinforcement Learning Technique for Application Placement in Edge and Fog Computing Environments

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Goudarzi, Mohammad, Palaniswami, Marimuthu, Buyya, Rajkumar·2023·IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

Abstract

Fog/Edge computing is a novel computing paradigm supporting resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) devices by placement of their tasks on edge and/or cloud servers. Recently, several Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)-based placement techniques have been proposed in fog/edge computing environments, which are only suitable for centralized setups. The training of well-performed DRL agents requires manifold training data while obtaining training data is costly. Hence, these centralized DRL-based techniques lack generalizability and quick adaptability, thus failing to efficiently tackle application placement problems. Moreover, many IoT applications are modeled as Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) with diverse topologies. Satisfying dependencies of DAG-based IoT applications incur additional constraints and increase the complexity of placement problem. To overcome these challenges, we propose an actor-critic-based distributed application placement technique, working based on the IMPortance weighted Actor-Learner Architectures (IMPALA). IMPALA is known for efficient distributed experience trajectory generation that significantly reduces exploration costs of agents. Besides, it uses an adaptive off-policy correction method for faster convergence to optimal solutions. Our technique uses recurrent layers to capture temporal behaviors of input data and a replay buffer to improve the sample efficiency. The performance results, obtained from simulation and testbed experiments, demonstrate that our technique significantly improves execution cost of IoT applications up to 30% compared to its counterparts.

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Authors
Goudarzi, M., Palaniswami, M., & Buyya, R.
Affiliations
The University of Melbourne (AU)
Venue
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
Published
2023-05-01
Volume
22
Issue
5
Pages
2491-2505
ISSN
  • 1536-1233 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-0660
  • 2161-9875
OpenAlex
W3208229128
Cited by
155
References
40
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 3
FWCI
9.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cloud Computing and Resource Management
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Hardware and Architecture › Energy Efficiency in Computing
Keywords
application placement, edge computing, fog computing, deep reinforcement learning, distributed training, impala, actor-critic, directed acyclic graphs, Internet of Things, task placement, execution cost, recurrent neural networks, replay buffer

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