Cooperative Service Caching for Reducing Delay in Multi-Edge Networks

Edge service caching enables computational tasks to be processed at nearby edge nodes (ENs). caching necessary programs rather than in the distant cloud. However, with the continually increasing popularity of IoT devices, resource-constrained ENs cannot ensure low-latency services for tasks generated by these devices. To address this issue, in this study, we propose a cooperative service caching mechanism that caches highly demanded services and processes tasks requiring those services across multiple ENs. Considering the waiting time for tasks to be processed at the EN, we formulate a delay minimization problem in cooperative service caching. To solve this problem, we devise an ant colony optimization-based algorithm. The simulation results show that the proposed method can achieve a lower total delay than existing methods.