Offloading Execution from Edge to Cloud: a Dynamic Node-RED Based Approach

Abstract: Fog computing enables use cases where data produced in end devices are stored, processed, and acted on directly at the edges of the network, yet computation can be offloaded to more powerful instances through the edge to cloud continuum. Such offloading mechanism is especially needed in case of modern multi-purpose IoT gateways, where both demand and operation conditions can vary largely between deployments. To facilitate the development and operations of gateways, we implement offloading directly as part of the IoT rapid prototyping process embedded in the software stack, based on Node-RED. We evaluate the implemented method using an image processing example, and compare various offloading strategies based on resource consumption and other system metrics, highlighting the differences in handling demand and service levels reached.