Phileas: A Simulation-based Approach for the Evaluation of Value-based Fog Services

Efficient design for Fog Computing applications need to consider the optimal use of the available resources at the edge and the Cloud, switching from one other depending on the current status, execution price, and user requirements. This is a complex task, as the optimization needs to consider the distributed and dynamic nature of the environment. There is the need to support investigation efforts by enabling researchers to experiment with Fog environments in a controlled and reproducible fashion. Unfortunately, most simulators do not implement a service model suited for Fog computing applications. This paper presents Phileas, a simulator that supports the definition of Fog services. Phileas allows to reenact the behavior of Fog services and evaluate different service policies and allocation strategies.