Processing-Aware Migration Model for Stateful Edge Microservices

To support latency sensitive microservices at the edge, stateful container migration has gathered momentum as a key solution to ensure a satisfying experience to mobile users. In this paper, we first investigate experimentally the stateful migration process, by using state-of-the-art tools, namely, Podman and CRIU. We then characterize the main migration KPIs, i.e., migration duration and downtime, and develop an analytical model that can effectively assess whether stateful migration is feasible while meeting the user's QoE requirements. Importantly, our model is validated using real-world microservices and, by accounting for all relevant real-world aspects of stateful migration, significantly outperforms state-of-the-art models.