A Cost-Minimized Task Migration Assignment Mechanism in Blockchain Based Edge Computing System

Background: Cloud computing is usually introduced to execute computing intensive tasks for data processing and data mining. As a supplement to cloud computing, edge computing is provided as a new paradigm to effectively reduce processing latency, energy consumption cost and bandwidth consumption for time-sensitive tasks or resource-sensitive tasks. To better meet such requirements during task assignment in edge computing systems, an intelligent task migration assignment mechanism based on blockchain is proposed, which jointly considers the factors of resource allocation, resource control and credit degree. Methods: In this paper, an optimization problem is firstly constructed to minimize the total cost of completing all tasks under constraints of delay, energy consumption, communication, and credit degree. Here, the terminal node mines computing resources from edge nodes to complete task migration. An incentive method based on blockchain is provided to mobilize the activity of terminal nodes and edge nodes, and to ensure the security of the transaction during migration. The designed allocation rules ensure the fairness of rewards for successfully mining resource. To solve the optimization problem, an intelligent migration algorithm that utilizes a dual “actor-reviewer” neural network on inverse gradient update is proposed which makes the training process more stable and easier to converge. Results: Compared to the existing two benchmark mechanisms, the extensive simulation results indicate that the proposed mechanism based on neural network can converge at a faster speed and achieve the minimal total cost. Conclusion: To satisfy the requirements of delay and energy consumption for computing intensive tasks in edge computing scenarios, an intelligent, blockchain based task migration assignment mechanism with joint resource allocation and control is proposed. To realize this mechanism effectively, a dual “actor-reviewer” neural network algorithm is designed and executed.