Journal of Systems Architecture

Edge Intelligence in Motion: Mobility-Aware Dynamic DNN Inference Service Migration

with Downtime in Mobile Edge Computing
--Manuscript Draft--

Manuscript Number: JSA-D-22-00243

Article Type: VSI: ECforIoV [MGE - Shaohua Wan]
Keywords: mobile edge computing; DNN service migration; multi-exit DNN; model predictive control

Abstract: Edge intelligence (EI) becomes a trend to push the deep learning frontiers to the network edge.
In this paper, we consider a user-centric management for DNN inference service migration and
exit point selection, aiming at maximizing overall user utility (e.g., DNN model inference
accuracy) with various service downtime. We first leverage dynamic programming to propose
an optimal offline migration and exit point selection strategy (OMEPS) algorithm when
complete future information of user behaviors is available. Amenable to a more practical
application domain without complete future information, we incorporate the OMEPS algorithm
into a model predictive control (MPC) framework, and then construct a mobility-aware
servicemigration and DNN exit point selection (MOMEPS) algorithm,

which improves the long-term service utility within limited predictive future information.
However, heavy computation overheads of MOMEPS algorithm impose burdens on mobile
devices, thus we further advocate a cost-efficient algorithm, named smart- MOMEPS, which
introduces a smart migration judgement based on Neural Networks to control the
implementation of (MOMEPS) algorithm by wisely estimating whether the DNN service should

be migrated or not. Extensive trace-driven simulation results demonstrate the superior

performance of our algorithms for achieving significant overall utility improvements with low
computation overheads compared with other online algorithms.

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Manuscript File
Edge Intelligence in Motion: Mobility-Aware
Dynamic DNN Inference Service Migration with
Downtime in Mobile Edge Computing
Pu Wang1,2, Tao Ouyang1, Guocheng Liao3, Jie Gong1, Shuai Yu1, Xu Chen1
School of Computer Science and Engineering1, School of Biomedical Engineering2, Sun Yat-sen University,
Guangzhou, China
School of Software Engineering3, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China
Abstract—Edge intelligence (EI) becomes a trend to push the
deep learning frontiers to the network edge, so that deep neural
networks (DNNs) applications can be well leveraged at resource-
constrained mobile devices with benefits of edge computing. Due
to the high user mobility among scattered edge servers in many
scenarios such as internet of vehicular applications, dynamic
service migration is desired to maintain a reliable and efficient
quality of service (QoS). However, inevitable service downtime
incurred by service migration would largely degrade the real-
time performance of delay-sensitive DNN inference services.
Fortunately, based on the characteristics of container-based
DNN services, exit point selection and layer sharing feature of
the container technique can alleviate such performance
degradation. Thus, we consider a user-centric management for
DNN inference service migration and exit point selection, aiming
at maximizing overall user utility (e.g., DNN model inference
accuracy) with var- ious service downtime. We first leverage
dynamic programming to propose an optimal offline migration
and exit point selection strategy (OMEPS) algorithm when
complete future information of user behaviors is available.
Amenable to a more practical application domain without
complete future information, we incorporate the OMEPS
algorithm into a model predictive control (MPC) framework,
and then construct a mobility-aware service migration and DNN
exit point selection (MOMEPS) algorithm, which improves the
long-term service utility within limited predictive future
information. However, heavy computation over- heads of
MOMEPS algorithm impose burdens on mobile devices, thus we
further advocate a cost-efficient algorithm, named smart-
MOMEPS, which introduces a smart migration judgement based
on Neural Networks to control the implementation of
(MOMEPS) algorithm by wisely estimating whether the DNN
service should be migrated or not. Extensive trace-driven
simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of our
smart-MOMEPS algorithm for achieving significant overall
utility improvements with low computation overheads compared
with other online algorithms.
Index Terms—DNN service migration, multi-exit DNN, service
downtime, mobile edge computing, model predictive control.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH the explosive development of Internet of Things
(IoT) devices, an increasing number of Deep Neu-
ral Networks (DNNs)-driven IoT applications, including face
recognition, autonomous driving and augmented reality are
emerging. Generally, such applications require massive com-
puting resources to guarantee low latency and high inference
accuracy, which are often unavailable due to mobile devices’
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1
constrained computing capability and energy. For example,
real-time video analytic applications require processing tens
of frames per second by computation-intensive DNN models
(e.g., YOLO, ResNet), which are unsuitable for resource-
constrained mobile devices [1]. To tackle this challenge, mo-
bile edge computing (MEC) is proposed to push these services
from the local IoT devices to the network edges, which are
servers in proximity to mobile devices (e.g., at base stations or
WiFi hotpots). Mobile devices can collaborate with network
edges to achieve a higher quality of service and a low latency
via task offloading [2].
However, maintaining a reliable and efficient service
perfor- mance of DNN applications at the network edge is
nontrivial due to the mobility of users. To reduce the network
latency, DNN services are generally deployed at a nearby
edge server, where users can access their services through
wireless commu- nications to a local base station (BS), such
as WiFi hotspots. When a user moves away from the service
scope of the nearby edge server, the connection will switch to
a new BS for remote access to the service, and the QoS will
inevitably degrade due to the longer transmission delay caused
by increasing network distance. Although methods such as
service replica [3], can alleviate the service performance
degradation caused by user mobility via backing up services
on different edge servers, it brings issues such as user privacy
and storage redundancy. Therefore, we focus on another
widely adopted approach, dynamic service migration [4]–[7],
to solve this problem.
Designing a suitable dynamic service migration scheme
faces a few challenges. Specifically, frequent service
migration would cause extensive service downtime [8], and
thus is unacceptable for latency sensitive DNN services,
especially in internet of vehicular applications where the
users have high mobility. Besides, blindly allowing service to
follow user mobility (such as Ping-pong loops, i.e., the
user goes back and forth between two BSs’ coverages) incurs
unnecessary migrations and heavy overheads. Therefore, it is
critical to dynamically migrate a DNN service in a moderated
way to follow the user mobility.
Existing work on edge service migration has regarded
container as a promising way for service provision [9]–[12].
Compared to traditional virtual machine (VM), container is
a more lightweight virtualization technique and takes up less
 2

Container Image Registry delay. To combat the service outage, we could run DNN
service on a mobile device with a proper exit point during
migration. However, exiting inference at an early DNN layer
Layer 1
... results in a loss of accuracy. As the network distance
Layer n
DNN service
container image
continues to increase, the benefits of early exit will
gradually decrease as the inference needs to exit at earlier
exit point.
As illustrated in Fig. 1, a mobile vehicle travels around
EDGE1 EDGE2 EDGE3
three regions, each containing a BS endowed with an edge
conv
conv

conv

Exit 1
FC

DNN service
Exit 2
FC

server. For better QoS, the vehicle needs to constantly decide

whether to migrate service or choose early exit points while
To exit early
or not?
Region 1 Region 2 Region 3
driving. When the vehicle is going back and forth between
regions 2 and 3, it’s wiser to exit DNN inference early than
BS1 BS2 BS3 keep service following the vehicle’s mobility with considering
the service downtime. In addition to the user trajectory,
To migrate service or not?
service request frequency is another important factor in
migration de- cisions. The vehicle will generate a higher
move frequency of service requests in region 2 because of the more
complicated road condition. In this case, migrating service
to BS2 in advance
User move User move User may yield higher utility. Therefore, future information of user
activities could help us make a better decision on service
Fig. 1. Dynamic DNN service migration in mobile edge computing. counteract the increased transmission

storage space than VMs. Nevertheless, as DNN applications

are generally built on machine learning frameworks such
as TensorFlow and PyTorch, the container image sizes of
these applications can use up to be hundreds or thousands
of megabytes. Service downtime caused by migration comes
primarily from fetching the image from the remote registry,
which is relatively long for latency-sensitive applications.
Therefore, frequent migration would lead to significant traf-
fic overhead and terrible user experience. In our work, we
leverage the layer sharing feature of the container to reduce
service downtime. Container image packages the necessary
files, such as runtime tools, system libraries, and data files in
different independent layers, which can be shared by different
images [13]. For example, the official container image size of
TensorFlow on dockerhub is 400MB [14], and it will cost 80
seconds to migrate on a 5 Mbps wide area network (WAN).
When a TensorFlow-based DNN service is migrated to an
edge node where the TensorFlow image already exists, the
service can share this base image at the target edge node
without downloading the full service image. In this case, only
a part of service data such as state-dependent files, user’s
private data or personalized model parameters need to be
migrated, and hence the service downtime could be
significantly reduced.
In this work, we focus on the dynamical service migration
problem in a distributed and time-varying MEC scenario to
optimize the long-term user utility, e.g., the inference
accuracy of the DNN model. We assume that a request will
bring full utility if it completes before the deadline.
Otherwise, the utility will be zero. As mentioned above,
frequent migration will cause numerous service interruptions,
and during the migration, all the requests will miss the
deadline and bring no utility. Since the increase in network
distance is the main cause of migration, in order to reduce
the frequency of migration, we introduce an early exit
mechanism [15] to acquire less inference latency to
migration and exit point selection. Fortunately, a variety of 3
studies have been on predicting user behavior, which can be
utilized to predict future information for decision-making.
In this paper, we consider a time-slotted system and for-
mulate the long-term optimization problem. We propose an
online algorithm based on Model Predictive Control
(MPC)
[16] framework to make adaptive DNN service migration
and exit point selection decisions. Then we devise a
migration judgement approach based on Neural Networks to
make an efficient policy for higher user utility and lower
computation overhead. The main contributions of this paper
are listed as below:
1) We propose a general framework of mobility-aware
dynamic service migration and DNN model exit point
selection in MEC scenario. Such a framework enables
efficient DNN service that maximizes the long-term
user utility.
2) We formulate a long-term user utility maximization
problem considering downtime in MEC. We solve the
problem in an offline setting where the information of
user’s activities is know, via a polynomial-time
dynamic programming algorithm. In an online setting
where the information is unknown, we leverage a
MPC framework to construct an online proactive
service migration and DNN exit point selection
algorithm named MOMEPS to solve this long-term
utility problem. Furthermore, to cope with the heavy
computation overhead of MPC, we devise a smart
migration judgement approach based on Neural
Network called smart-MOMEPS, which ef- ficiently
navigates the performance and computation overhead
trade-off.
3) We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate our
online algorithm based on real-world data traces. We
demon- strate the effectiveness of our approach by
comparisons with benchmark algorithms. The trace-
driven simulation results show that our approach can
significantly improve the overall utility and reduce the
computation overhead.
 4

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II

Container-based Service Migration: In addition,
briefly reviews related works of service migration. In section
container-based service migration is specifically considered
III, we describe the system model and problem formulation. In
in our work which is more lightweight and saves storage
section IV, we propose an optimal offline service migration and
space compared to traditional VM. To reduce the migration
exit point selection algorithm to maximize overall user utility.
overhead, [11] designed an efficient live migration system
We explain the MPC-based online algorithm and furthermore
which ensures integrity of components by leveraging the
propose a more lightweight algorithm in Section V. In Section
layered structure of container. In [9], authors proposed
VI, we evaluate our online algorithm to demonstrate the
an edge computing platform architecture which supports
effectiveness. Finally, we conclude this paper in Section VII.
seamless docker container migration of offloading services
while also keeping the moving mobile user with its nearest
II. RELATED WORK edge server. [12] presented Voyager, a just-in-time live
container migration service which combines service memory
With the rapid development of MEC, which allows low
state migration with local filesystem migration to minimize
transmission delay and fast response speed, significant chal-
service downtime. However, these works mainly focus on
lenges are gradually emerging. The inherent characteristics of
leveraging container features to reduce service downtime.
MEC services which are distributed in different geographic
While our work incorporates the impact of various service
regions, and the mobility of users bring dominating
downtime due to layer sharing feature of container into
difficulties. Hence, edge service migration solution, which can
migration and improves long-term user utility by optimizing
help to maintain QoS in a dynamic MEC environment, has
migration decisions.
become one of the significant research topics.
DNN Inference Service Migration: Since DNN has been
Service Migration without Future Prediction: Plenty of
extensively applied for intelligent applications at the edge,
literature has focused on service migration in MEC to cope
ongoing service downtime becomes extremely unaffordable
with the key challenge of user dynamics. A branch of such
for latency-sensitive DNN inference services. To figure out
works accommodate arbitrary user mobilities without predic-
the above difficulty, [25] developed a mobility-included DNN
tion. Zhao et al. tackled virtual machine migration strategy
partition offloading algorithm to adapt to user movement.
based on multiple attribute decision-making, aiming at mini-
Wang et al. adopted DNN inference exit at earlier layers
mizing a comprehensive cost given current network situation
during service outage to shorten the inference delay by
and user location [17]. In [18], Ouyang et al. researched an
sacrificing an acceptable level of accuracy [26]. Different
adaptive service placement mechanism at MEC and
from [25] and [26], we solve DNN inference service outage
formulated it as a contextual multi-armed bandit learning
collaboratively via early exit mechanism and dynamic service
problem to optimize user’s perceived latency and service
migration to maintain the user QoS.
migration cost. Besides, many studies utilized Markov
decision process-based (MDP) methods to solve dynamic
service placement under the assumption that user mobility III. SYSTEM MODEL AND PROBLEM FORMULATION
follows or can be approximated by a Markov chain-mobility In this section, we present system model and problem
model. Specifically, [19] worked on balancing a trade-off formulation for DNN service migration with downtime and
between migration cost and quality by modeling the service exit point selection in mobile edge computing.
migration procedure using MDP. In [20], the optimal policy of
edge service migration formulated as MDP was proved to be a A. Overview of Dynamic Migration for DNN Service
threshold policy when user mobility follows a one-
Fig. 1 illustrates a typical edge intelligence scenario, i.e.,
dimensional (1-D) asymmetric random walk mobility mode.
edge-assisted one-device object detection for video streaming
Service Migration with Future Prediction: Accordingly,
analytics. More explicitly, a smart vehicle traveling around an
user activities prediction in service migration scenario is also
urban city uses DNN service to process surrounding informa-
widely studied to improve user QoS. Ma et al. incorporated
tion gathered by its camera. Based on existing virtualization
two-timescale Lyapunov optimization method and limited
technologies, the service profile and environment for multi-
user mobility prediction to find the optimal service placement
exit DNN model (e.g., AlexNet) can run on a dedicated
decisions [21]. Zhang et al. in [22] overcame the challenges
container. Thus, the real-time video stream can be collabora-
of an underlying dynamic rendering-module placement prob-
tively processed at both local vehicle and nearby edge server
lem by leveraging model predictive control (MPC) to tackle
via task offloading [1]. To guarantee a reliable QoS for a
user trajectory prediction at the edge. Both [23] and [24]
moving vehicle, dynamic DNN service migration and exit
took advantages of MPC to work out dynamic placement
point selection are adopted to accommodate the high
of virtual network functions (VNF) and achieved efficient
dynamics within required completion time.
resource scheduling. However, service downtime, which is
With the presented edge-assisted architecture, we consider
widespread at the edge and has great influence on migration
a set of base stations (BSs):B= 1, { ..., B }, each of which is
policies, was not considered in these works. In this paper,
equipped with an edge server to provide DNN service to the
we take service downtime fully into account and propose an
user. And the user accesses the service through the nearest
MPC-based algorithm, which integrates NN-based migration
base station. In line with the recent work [27] on edge
judgement for mitigating the heavy computation cost of MPC.
computing, we adopt a discrete time-slotted model to fully
characterize the

TABLE I
SUMMARY OF NOTATIONS
Notation Definition
B The set of all the base stations
M All early exit points of the DNN model
xi(t) Whether user decides to offload service to BS i at time t
yj (t) Whether j is the selected early exit point at time t
Tmax The maximum tolerated delay of each request
rt The request rate at time t
dfj Inference delay of the j-th early point on edge server
de Inference delay of the fixed γ-th early point on local device
γ
lf (t) Total delay of a request while offloading service at
t lc(t) Communication delay while offloading service at t
le(t) Total delay of a request delay while executing locally at
t si Time cost for BS i to fetching container images
λ(t) Downtime caused by migrating service at
t S(t) User is in the offloading state at t
Uo(t) User utility while offloading at
t Um(t) User utility while migrating at t
system dynamics (e.g., user mobility and request frquency).
Each time slot T = {0, ..., T } matches the time scale
where service migration and exit point selection decisions
are updated. For ease of exposition, Table I summarizes the
introduced notations.
B. Dynamic Service Migration
Due to the uncertain user behavior, such as user mobility
and request frequency, the user needs to dynamically migrate
service among these BSs to acquire higher QoS. Here we
use xi(t) ∈0,{ 1 to
} indicate the decision-making for service
migration at time slot t. xi(t) = 1 (i ∈ ) indicates that the
user decides to offload computation toBthe i-th BS at t. Note
that the user can only offload to one BS at each time slot.
Thus, such a constrain of service migration decision-making
can be expressed as:
Σ degradation due to service downtime. Let yj(t) denote
xi(t) ≤ 1, ∀t ∈ T , (1)
i∈B
xi (t) ∈ {0, 1}, ∀t ∈ T , ∀i ∈ B. (2)
Considering the delay-sensitive nature of DNN services, we
capture large service downtime, which is caused by fetch-
ing container image from remote image registry (during the
migration procedure), when optimizing the long-tem service
performance. Once the user determines a migration, the DNN
service can only be executed locally on the user’s device and
successive migration decisions should be consistent with the
original one until the whole migration procedure terminates.
Due to different container layers deployed on edge servers,
different amounts of data should be downloaded from the
central image registry to fetch necessary container layers at
the target BS, which leads to various service downtime based
on current migration decision. In this regard, we denote the
time cost for fetching container image at BS i by si, and
use λ(t) to denote the service downtime at time t. Then, the
5
constraints of DNN service execution should be satisfied as
Σ = si 1{xi (t)>xi (t−1)} , ∀t ∈ T , ∀i ∈ B,
λ(t) (3)
x (τ ) ≤ 1 − 1 ,
i {xi (t)>xi (t−1)}
i∈B
t + 1 ≤ τ ≤ t + λ(t) − 1, ∀t ∈ T , (4)
where 1{·} is the indicator function. The constraint (3) indi-
cates the current service downtime for migrating service to BS
i when xi (t) > xi (t − 1) (i.e., ix (t) = 1 andi x (t − 1) =
0).
The constraint (4) denotes the local execution during the
migration procedure, i.e., the user can not make migration
decision from t + 1 to t + λ(t) −1 after deciding to migrate
to BS i at time t, where the service is being migrated from t
to t + λ(t) 1.
−
To clearly describe the current state of user, we use S(t)
to indicate whether user is migrating or offloading. S(t) = 1
represents user is offloading computation to BS at t. Accord-
ingly, S(t) = 0 when user is migrating its service (executing
requests locally). Obviously, there is only one state for a
user at a given time slot. The expressions are listed below:
Σ
S(t) = xi (t) − 1{xi (t)>xi (t−1)} , ∀t ∈ T , (5)
i∈B
S(t) ∈ {0, 1}, ∀t ∈ T . (6)
C. DNN Early Exit Point Selection
To improve the service performance during task offloading
procedure, we incorporate the early exist point selection of
DNN model to accommodate the dynamic user behavior and
edge environment. Without loss of generality, we consider the
DNN model with a set of early exit points, denoted asM =
(1, ..., M ). The exit point selection would directly affect the
service performance (i.e., delay and accuracy). For example,
an earlier exit of DNN inference causes less computation
delay with a lower accuracy [28]. Therefore, user can choose
to exit DNN inference early on BS to avoid performance
∈M
whether j
is the selected early exit point at t. yj(t) = 1 means that the
DNN model will exit the inference at the j-th exit point at t.
Like service migration, the user can only make the exit point
selection decision while offloading. In addition, only one exit
point can be selected at each time slot. We thus have have
following constraints:
yj (t) ∈ {0, 1}, ∀t ∈ T , ∀j ∈ M, (7)
Σ Σ
yj(t) = xi(t), ∀t ∈ T . (8)
j∈M i∈B
D. User Request Latency
We assume that a request will bring the full user utility
if it is completed before the deadline. Otherwise, the user
utility will be zero. Therefore, to maximize the overall user
utility, the latency of each request should meet its deadline
[26]. We define Tmax as the maximum tolerated delay of each
request. The user request latency differs in offloading state
and mitration state. 6
 7

Latency of offloading: When user offloads its request to an

the problem. Next, we focus on the challenging case without
edge server, the request delay lf (t) is jointly determined by
future information. We leverage advanced machine learning
the DNN inference delay and communication delay. We set
methods to predict limited information, and devise an online
the delay for edge server to perform model inference at the
algorithm.
j-th early exit point as df . lc(t) denotes the communication
j
delay at t. Apparently, lc(t) includes the delay for
IV. OFFLINE OPTIMAL SERVICE MIGRATION AND EXIT
transmitting the request from the user’s device to the BS that
POINT SELECTION ALGORITHM SOLUTION
user is connected to at time t, and the forwarding delay
which majorly depends on the hop distance along the In this section, we present the offline optimal solution of
shortest communication path among these BSs. The the service migration and DNN exit point selection problem
constraints of lf (t) can be expressed as: through dynamic programming, when the complete future
information of the user activities is assumed to be exactly
lf (t) = S(t)(lc(t) + djf ), known.
lf (t) ≤ Tmax, ∀t ∈ T . (9) First, we show that this offline optimal problem possesses
the property of optimal substructure. We define (i, q, n) as
Latency of migration: During migration, DNN inference the state of the user, in which i ∈ T represents time, q ∈
will be processed at local device with a fixed early exit point
B service and n ∈ M
represents the BS that hosts the user
γ ∈ . Hence the user request latency le(t) is mainly deter- represents the selected DNN model exit point. Accordingly,
mined
M by the computation delay. We set the DNN inference (i−, q−, n−) is the previous state of (i, q, n). We set p ∈ B
delay while running at local device as deγ , and its constraints and m ∈ M as the user migration decision and exit point
are shown as follows: selection, respectively. Let C((i, q), p, m) represent the whole
l (t) = (1 − S(t))de ,
time slots to complete p and m. It can be expressed as
e γ


le(t) ≤ Tmax, ∀t ∈ T . (10) 1, p = q,
C((i, q, n), p, m) = sp, p q, sp + i ≤ (12)
E. Problem Formulation 
T,
T − i, p ̸= q, sp + i > T.
After introducing the user’s decision variables and request
latency, we are ready to present the user utility maximization Here, p = q indicates that user decides to re-select the model
problem in a given time horizon. Here we define the utility as exit point in the current state, and it cost one time slot to
the inference accuracy of the DNN model. The accumulated complete. When the user chooses to migrate service (p q),
user utility contains the utility in migrating and offloading. the decision execution time is the service downtime (sp), and
We define the utility at j-th early exit point is uj . The user the portion beyond T is discarded.
request rate at time t is rt. When the request is offloading, the Let U ((i, q, n), p, m) represent the sum of the utilities
user utility Uo(t) at time t is the sum of the utility of all during the completion of decision p and m. Note that DNN
requests at that time, which can be expressed as: inference will be processed at local device with a fixed
early exit point γ during service downtime (p q). f (i, q, n)
Uo(t) = S(t)rtuj, ∀t ∈ T . represents the accumulated utility at state (i, q, n). Then, given
(i, q, n) and the user’s decisions p and m, the state is transited
During migration, we set the utility at a fixed exit point γ
to (i+, q+, n+), where
is uγ, and the migration user utility Um(t) at time t can be
expressed as: i+ = i + C((i, q, n), p, m), (13)
Um(t) = (1 − S(t))rtuγ, ∀t ∈ T . q+ = p, (14)
n+ = m. (15)
We formulate an accumulated user utility maximization prob-
lem in a given finite time horizon T as follows: And the user obtains following
u r, utility if p =
m i
U ((i, q, n), p, m) =
q, (16)
Σ
max (t)) (11) uγriC((i, q, n), p, m), otherwise.
i j T (U (t) + U
m ++
t=1
o Thus the accumulated utility at ,q
x (t),y (t) (i
+
,n ) is
s.t. (1) − (10) f (i+, q+, n+) = f (i, q, n) + U ((i, q, n), p, m). (17)
Solving the problem in (11) has the following two chal- ∗
Let f (i, q, n) denote the optimal accumulated utility at
lenges. Firstly, as the objective is the accumulative utility in a (i, q, n), and then we have
time horizon, it is difficult to gain the complete future infor-
f ∗ (i+ , q + , n+ ) = max (U ((i, q, n), p, m) + f ∗ (i, q, n)) (18)
mation (e.g., user trajectory and request frequency). Secondly, p∈B,
m∈M
the user’s decisions are coupled across different time slots.
s.t. (12) − (17).
That is, decision at current slot would affect decisions in the
future. To solve these challenges, we begin with an ideal case Since the problem can be regarded as the Bellman equation,
where future information is available, and develop an optimal a dynamic programming approach can be adopted to derive an
offline solution. This helps provide some insights to solve offline optimal solution of our service migration and DNN
exit 8

point selection problem. For ease of exposition, we transform
the offline optimal problem into a longest path problem by
constructing a directed acyclic graph (DAG).
T1 T2
T5
T3 T4
B1 B1 B1 B1 B1 B1
S B2 B2 B2 B2
B3 B3 B3
Fig. 2. Longest-path problem transformation of offline service migration and
DNN exit point selection problem over T = 5 time slots with three BSs B1,
B2 and B3.
As shown in Fig. 2, we construct a graph G = (V, E) to
represent all possible service migration and DNN exit point
se- lection decisions within T time slots. Each vertex presents
the state (i, q, n) that user can reach. Since the future
information (user trajectory and request frequency) is
known, exit point n can be determined when i and q are
given at each state. Note that the source vertex S represents
the initial state (we set it as (0, 1, n)). Each state (except the
initial state) is transited from the previous state by performing
the corresponding decision. The destination vertex E is an
auxiliary vertex to ensure that a single longest path can be
founded. Each edge weight on the DAG between two states
represents the sum of the request utilities of executing
decisions, and the edges connecting to E have zero weight.
It’s worth noting that, suppose the user decision can be
completed before T , we can draw a directed edge between
two states. However, if the decision completes at a time
beyond T , for example, when a user in state B1 at T4
performs the decision of transferring to state B2. We draw a
directed edge from B1 at T4 to the corresponding yellow
auxiliary vertex B2. Accordingly, the weight of the edge
represents the sum of the utilities that user can obtain from
T4 to the end. The weight of the edge connecting each
vertex of time T to the yellow auxiliary vertices is zero. We
have now completed the construction of the DAG.
We can derive the user’s optimal strategy by finding the
longest path from S to E. Specifically, given all the
informa- tion of user activities over T time slots, the weight of
all edges can be calculated. And the total weight of a path
from source vertex S to destination vertex E can hence
present the whole utility over the time horizon.
Consequently, the optimal service migration and DNN model
exit point selection strategy can be found by taking the
longest path from S to E. As shown in Fig. 2, we give the
longest path for T = 5 with 3 BSs. Each red vertex
represents the state of the user at the corresponding time slot,
and the vertex pointed by the solid black edge is the user state
after performing the decision. Obviously, since this longest
path problem has an optimal sub-structure property, it can be
solved by the classical dynamic programming approach.
Algorithm 1 shows the pseudocode of our optimization al-
gorithm which uses dynamic programming with memoization
9
Algorithm 1 Offline Optimal Migration and Exit Point Selec-
tion Strategy (OMEPS) Algorithm
1: Parameter Notation
2: Vector O(i,q,n) is the optimal migration strategy, it
contains a series optimal states from initial state to state
(i, q, n).
− − −
3: Initialization: Initialize the initial state (i , q , n ) =
(0, 1, 1), optimal strategy O(i,q,n) = ∅, O(0,1,1) =
{(0,
∗ 1, 1)}, optimal accumulated utility of the initial state
E f( 0,1,1) = 0.
4: for each time slot i = 1, ..., T do
5: for all q such that q ∈ do
6: Determine the optimal
B previous state according to
decision p by using (12) − (17), i.e., (i−, q−, n−) opt =
∗
arg max(i− ,q− ,n− ) {U ((i− , q − , n− ), p, m) + f( i− ,q− ,n− ) }.
7: if the optimal previous state (i−, q−, n−)opt is
found, then
8: Update the optimal decisions to current state
O(i,q,n) {(i, q, n)} ∪ (i−,q−,n−)opt .
=
9: O Update the optimal accumulated utility at
∗
current state f( i,q,n) = U ((i− , q − , n− )opt , p, m)
∗
f( .
+ (i−,q−,n−)opt )
10: else
11: Update the optimal accumulated utility at cur-
∗
rent state f( i,q,n) = 0.
12: end if
13: end for
14: end for
15: Pick the maximum accumulated utility state (i, q, n)opt =
∗
arg max(i,q,n) f( i,q,n) and set its corresponding
policy O(i,q,n) as the offline optimal service migration and
DNN
model exit point selection strategy Ooff .
to find out the optimal strategies O of each time slot for a
given finite time horizon. In the algorithm, we can obtain
the longest-path (i.e., the optimal service migration and DNN
model exit point selection strategy) for each state by solving
the Bellman’s equation (i.e., line 6). Then we can pick the
path that contains the state with the highest accumulated
utility at T as the longest path (i.e., line 15), which is the
optimal solution to the problem. For searching the longest
path, the algorithm needs to enumerate at most B2 possible
states at each time slot. Thus, for the T -time slots, the time-
complexity of Algorithm 1 is O(B2T ).
V. ONLINE SERVICE MIGRATION AND EXIT PINT
SELECTION ALGORITHM
So far we have presented the solution of the problem in
(11) under complete future information scenario as a baseline.
In practice, it is challenging to obtain complete information.
This motivates an optimal online algorithm without complete
information. To this end, in this section, we combine some
popular machine learnig techniques (e.g., LSTM) to predict
future information (e.g., mobility traces) to improve the long-
term service performance with informed decision making.
However, frequent prediction would incur large running costs

CONV
FC
Migration decision-making
Exit Point 1
CONV
FC
Exit Point 2
...
Predict information of
t0+1~t0+w
prediction OMEPS
t t +1 t +2...................t +n
0 0 0 0
Fig. 3. Overview of MPC-Based Online Migration and Exit Point Selection
Strategy.
(e.g., prediction latency), which are not affordable for the
resource-constrained user equipment. To well balance the
performance-cost trade-off, we propose a proactive adaptive
algorithm, named smart-MOMEPS, to jointly optimize ser-
vice migration and early exit point of DNN services, which
integrates MPC-based online migration and exit point
selection strategy (MOMEPS) and NN-based migration
judgement for achieving higher averaged utilities at low
costs.
A. MPC-Based Online Migration and exit point selection
Strategy
A wide variety of machine learning techniques (e.g., [29]–
[32]) have been studied to well estimate the user behavior
by leveraging collected data information. Among them, long
short-term memory (LSTM) [33] is considered particularly
efficient for time series prediction (user activities in our
problem) due to its ability to keep a memory of previous
inputs [34]. In addition, compared with other machine
learning methods, such as DNN, LSTM has a simpler network
structure and less computation overhead, making it more
suitable for resource-constrained mobile devices. Therefore,
in our work, we exploit LSTM to predict future information,
including user trajectory and request demanding. By
incorporating these predictive results to assist decision
optimization, we can get rid of extensive unnecessary
migrations caused by uncertain user mobility (e.g., Ping-pong
loops).
The MPC-based online migration and exit point selection
strategy works as follows. As illustrated in Fig. 3, at the
beginning of each slot, the device would use its prediction
mechanism to estimate the future information of mobility
trace and request demands within W time slots before
decision- making. Here, W is actually the size of prediction
window. Sequentially, based on the predictive results, the
device can derive optimal decisions of service migration and
early exit point selection during the prediction window via the
OMEPS algorithm.
The prediction mechanism in the online setting can hardly
provide perfect prediction. Moreover, as the window size W
increases, the predict error would accumulate, which even-
tually leads to severe performance degradation. To enhance
1
Algorithm 2 MPC-Based Online Migration and Exit Point
Selection Strategy (MOMEPS) Algorithm
1: Parameter Notation
2: Vector π(i,q,n) is the optimal migration and exit point
selection strategy of a prediction window, it contains a
series optimal states from current time slot t to t + W .
3: Initialization: τ = 1, t = 1.
Repeat
4: while current time slot t ≤ T do
5: τ =t
6: Predict the user mobility and request frequency of
future W time slots [τ + 1, ..., τ + W ].
7: Determine the optimal strategy π(i,q,n) of the predic-
tion window [τ, ..., τ + W ] by using OMEPS.
8: Select the first step (i, q, n) of π(i,q,n) to execute.
9: t=i+1
10: end while
the robustness of informed decisions, we adopt a standard
MPC-based approach for decision execution, i.e., only the first
decision would be implemented in each prediction window. In
this way, the negative impact of accumulated predictive errors
can be considerably alleviated, since the potential terrible
decisions in the prediction widow (especially last few time
slots) are rejected.
We summarize the MPC-based online migration and exit
point selection strategy in Algorithm 2. In line 7, user needs to
perform OMEPS algorithm to obtain the decisions of service
migration and early exit point selection. Thus for the T -time
slots, the time-complexity of Algorithm 2 is O(B2WT ).
B. Smart MOMEPS
However, MPC-based online migration and exit point se-
lection strategy (MOMEPS) brings not only substantial im-
provements of service performance, but also heavy running
costs. More explicitly, one-slot decision-making depends on a
whole optimization over the prediction window, which con-
tains the running cost (i.e., latency) of prediction mechanism
and OMEPS algorithm. Such computational costs in MO-
MEPS largely increases the burden of resource-constrained
mobile devices for decision optimization. To well balance the
performance-cost trade-off in the run time, we advocate a
proactive adaptive algorithm, Smart-MOMEPS, for enabling
more moderated decision optimization on the fly.
We design the Smart-MOMEPS algorithm based on the
observation of the MOMEPS execution results. Intuitively,
MOMEPS would avoid frequent service migrations to reduce
the user utility degradation due to extensive service down-
time. In this regard, we apply the MOMEPS algorithm over
the whole process to demonstrate the proportion of service
migration and edge offloading (i.e., no migration) in the long-
term policy optimization. As shown in Fig. 4, offloading
decisions play a dominant position (i.e., 81.82%) to reduce
service downtime, so that DNN services can be processed as
many as possible at the resource-rich edge server. Inspired
by such vital observations, a core idea in our proactive adap-
tive algorithm is to design a light-weight approach to assist
 1

Migration judgement

NN model

Offloading MOMEPS
exit point selection

CONV
FC
Exit Point 1
CONV

FC
Fig. 4. The percentage of migration and offloading throughout the MPC Exit Point 2

execution. Fig. 5. Overview of smart-MOMEPS Online Migration Strategy.

Algorithm 3 Smart-MOMEPS Algorithm

user quickly determine whether a DNN service migration is
needed or not. As illustrated in Fig 5, once determining DNN
service migration at current slot, MPC-based predictive policy
would be adopted to derive an efficient migration decision.
Otherwise, the device can offload its task with an optimal exit
point selection to achieve high service performance. Clearly,
the times of executing MPC-based predictive policy will be
significantly reduced, thus leading to lower computational
overheads.
Inspired by [35], we adopt a light-weight Neural Networks
(NN) model to dynamically determine whether migrate DNN
service or not based on current user state, due to its powerful
presentation capacity. Particularly, the device can gather suffi-
cient sample traces beforehand and train the NN model
offline, and then only run the lightweight model inference
online1. To well characterize the underlying mapping of NN
model, we consider two key items observed by the device at
current time slot, i.e., the frequency of requests and hop
distance between service and user as the input for NN model.
The rationales behind are as follows: on the one side, a long
transmission delay with large hop distances would stimulate
the DNN service migration, aiming at higher utilities over
successive time slots; On the another side, the request demand
is an essential indicator of service performance. Particularly,
high frequency of user requests (e.g., the number of video
frame in objective detection) implies high potential costs for
DNN service migration, since the DNN model must be
inferred at the local device during migration procedure.
Finally, we summarize this Smart-MOMEPS algorithm in
Algorithm 3.
VI. EVALUATION
In this section, we carry out trace-driven simulation to eval-
uate the performance of our proposed algorithm and demon-
strate its effectiveness compared with benchmark schemes.
1
Note that the Neural Networks can also be trained in an online manner.
Specifically, we collect the results of the MOMEPS execution in the
migrated case as training data, whose volume would be gradually
increased as time goes by. Considering introduced deployment costs on the
resource-constraint device, we adopt a suffice light-weight Neural Networks
with two full- connected layers, where only few data samples are needed for
well training.
1: Initialization: t = 1.
2: while current time slot t ≤ T do
3: Determine whether the current service needs to be
migrated with trained NN model.
4: if current service needs to be migrated, then
5: Determine the current migration decision (i, q, n)
with MOMEPS and execute it.
6: t=i+1
7: else
8: t=t+1
9: end if
10: end while
A. Simulation Setup
In this experiment, we take AlexNet [36] as the DNN
service, and we employ BranchyNet framework to train this
AlexNet model with five exit points. We test the delay and ac-
curacy of inference at each exit point, using a desktop PC
(Intel i7-6700 CPU, and 8 GB memory). The outcome is
shown in Table II. For user mobility, we utilize the ONE
simulator [37] to generate user movement traces. ONE
simulates the scenario where mobile devices move along the
roads and streets in an urban city. We chose the movement
data of cars, and the speed of each car is from 10km/h to
50km/h. For simplicity, we divide the whole area into 169
square parts, and each part has a base station that can provide
service×to the user and occupies 200m 200m area. In our
simulation, we adopt a discrete time-slotted model to
characterize the system dynamics. We set the interval of one
time slot to be 20 seconds, and the wireless connection and
system dynamic remain unchanged during each time slot. For
user trajectory and request frequency prediction, we utilize
LSTM to obtain the results.
B. Benchmark Schemes
We compare our proposed algorithms with aforementioned
offline optimal solution and the following 5 benchmarks.
1) Always Migration (AM): user always migrates service
to the base station where it is currently located.

TABLE II
LATENCY AND ACCURACY AT EACH EXIT POINT OF
Exit point 1 2
Latency (ms) 9.4 14.0
Accuracy 70.0 71.2
120
FHC
LM AM PLM
110
Algorithm efficiency (%)
100
90
80
70
60
50
500
1000
Time slot
Fig. 6. Algorithm efficiency at different time slots (W = 5 for MPC-based
algorithms).
2) Lazy Migration (LM): service will not be migrated until
the distance between the base station where it is hosted
and the user exceeds the threshold. Once the migration
is triggered, the service image is migrated to the base
station where the user is currently located.
3) Predictive Lazy Migration (PLM): a prediction-based
Lazy Migration algorithm proposed in [38]. It leverages
one-shot prediction to improve the LM algorithm.
4) Lazy MPC (L-MPC): this algorithm is proposed to
reduce the computation overhead of MPC. The basic
idea of L-MPC is that we use MPC only when the
migration condition in LM is met.
5) Fixed Horizon Control (FHC): unlike standard MPC-
based algorithm, FHC performs the whole decisions
within a prediction window instead of only the first step
of these decisions [39].
C. Algorithm Performance Comparisons
We first evaluate our proposed algorithms and five bench-
marks. The prediction window of MPC-based algorithms is
set to 5 time slots. We define a efficiency metric as the
ratio of the overall user utility obtained by these algorithms
to the utility obtained by the offline optimal algorithm. The
numerical results are shown in Fig. 6, our proposed algorithms
are stable in different time slots and always achieve more
notable effects compared with benchmarks. The efficiency
of Smart-MOMEPS is 96%, which is almost the same as
MOMEPS (97%). This result demonstrates that our proposed
smart migration judgement approach can effectively help user
determine whether migration is needed based on current user
state.
1
ALEXNET.
Lazy-MPC Smart-MOMEPS MOMEPS
1400
3 4 5
1200
18.5 24.4 30.2
Computation overhead
76.0 77.7 78.0 1000
800
600
Lazy-MPC 400
MOMEPS
Smart-MOMEPS
200
0
500 1000 1500 2000
Time slot
Fig. 7. MPC-based algorithms computation overhead at different time slots.
Besides, we can observe that FHC algorithm has the worst
performance, with only 58% of the offline optimal. This is
1500 2000 because the decisions in the last few time slots within the
prediction window deviate far from the optimal decisions due
to the accumulation of prediction errors, which can severely
reduce the algorithm efficiency. Compared to FHC, Smart-
MOMEPS has 1.6 times efficiency and better robustness.
Except for FHC, algorithms that leverage future information
work better than those that do not. The reason is that we
have considered service downtime in this work. If the service
blindly follows the user’s trajectory (AM and LM), service
cannot be migrated to a suitable BS in most cases due to
user mobility. In contrast, future information can help user
migrate service as appropriately as possible. Compared to
LM, PLM can help user avoid unnecessary migrations by
using the information of the next slot. However, when the
service needs to be migrated, PLM can not guide user where
to migrate the service since the downtime contains several
time slots. Accordingly, far-sighted Smart-MOMEPS can be
more effective than PLM.
D. Algorithms Execution Cost
We also evaluate the computation overhead reduction
caused by Smart-MOMEPS under different time slots. We
define the computation overhead of these algorithms as the
execution times of prediction and OMEPS. Under the result
of Fig. 7, Smart-MOMEPS can fulfill an average computation
overhead reduction ratio 3.1 times more than MOMEPS.
Although the computation overhead of Smart-MOMEPS is
higher than that of Lazy-MPC, it is still worthwhile
considering the better algorithm efficiency. To further verify
the performance of our algorithm on resource-constrained
devices, we evaluate the suitability of our algorithm on mobile
devices by measuring the execution latency on different
devices. The results are shown in table 3. Compared to the
interval of a time slot (20s), our algorithm is lightweight
enough to help user make migration decisions quickly.
 1

TABLE III
LATENCY OF LSTM ANDOMEPS ON DIFFERENT DEVICES.

Method Raspberry Pi Jetson NANO Jetson TX2 95

OMEPS 102.4 ms 39.1 ms 22.3 ms

Algorithm efficiency (%)

90

LSTM 44.0 ms 24.5 ms 24.2 ms

85

E. Impact of Prediction Error and Look-ahead Window Size

80
Furthermore, we investigate both the impact of prediction
error and how far to look into the future on algorithm 75
efficiency. We use two prediction methods to obtain the
future information. One is long short-term memory (LSTM) 70
and the other is autoregressive integrated moving average 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

model (ARIMA) [40]. The prediction accuracy of these two Prediction window size

methods are 93.3%, and 82.5%, respectively. Intuitively, the

more accurate the MPC model’s predictions are, the better the Fig. 8. Algorithm efficiency at different model accuracy and prediction
window size.
algorithm’s performance will be, and the experimental data
confirm this intuition. As shown in Fig. 8, the efficiency of 100
lstm-MOMEPS
lstm-smart-MOMEPS arima-MOMEPS 200

LSTM-based algorithm is 5.3% higher than the ARIMA- arima-smart-MOMEPS

95
based algorithm on average. 180
As for the influence of different prediction window size 90

Algorithm efficiency (%)

Migration times (%)

W , Fig. 8 shows that the efficiency of the algorithm will 85
160
improve with the increase of W at the beginning. This is
80
because of the existence of service downtime. When the
service downtime for migration to a base station is more than 75
140

the size of the prediction window, the algorithm will not select 70
this base station as the target of migration. Moreover, the 120

long- term effect of migration is not considered when W is 65

small, which will also cause the solution to underperform. 60 100

Therefore, when the size of the prediction window is smaller
than the maximum service downtime, the performance of the
algorithm
will improve with the increase of the size of the prediction
window. Nevertheless, this improvement does not last forever.
Fig. 8 shows that the performances of these algorithms begin
to decline when W is greater than 6. This can be explained by
the fact that when there are no errors in the future prediction,
W can be set as large as possible to obtain the best long-term
performance. However, we can not predict the future perfectly
in practice. The farther ahead we look into the future, the less
accurate the prediction becomes. Therefore, when the size of
the prediction window continues to increase, the performance
of the algorithm will gradually decline.
F. Impact of Different DNN Model Exit Points
To evaluate how the number of early exit points of DNN
model influences the algorithm performance, we employ an
AlexNet model as a DNN service and measure the perfor-
mance of our algorithms with 2 to 5 exit points. To concisely
show the performance difference, we characterize the perfor-
mance of each algorithm as its ratio to the offline optimal with
5 exit points.
The algorithm efficiency and migration times results are
shown in Fig. 9. As the number of exit points increases, the
efficiency of the algorithm will improve, and fewer service
migrations will be performed. This result demonstrates that
2 3 4 5
Number of early exit points
Fig. 9. Algorithm efficiency at different prediction window size.
model exit points play a positive role in DNN service migra-
tion. Assuming there is no exit point in a DNN model, when
user perceived delay exceeds the maximum tolerated delay of
the service, user can only migrate smart_MOMEPS_mig_percentsmart_MOMEPS_uti_percent
MOMEPS_mig_percentMOMEPS_uti_percent the service since the utility
will be zero if missing the deadline. During service downtime
caused by migration, service requests will be processed
locally with poor utility. Instead, exit point provides user with
an al- ternative to migration. User can choose to exit DNN
inference early to reduce computation delay, which can
alleviate the increased transmission delay caused by user
movement. This requires very little utility sacrifice compared
to migration. In a nutshell, more exit points lead to more user
utility and fewer migrations.
G. Impact of the Base Station Density
Finally, we show the impact of different base station den-
sities and observe the changes of our algorithms. It is worth
noting that the range of services provided by each base station
is constant in our setup, and we control the density of base
stations by changing its properties (one only forward user
requests, while the other are capable of both forwarding and
executing user requests). For simplicity, we characterize the

100 Smart-MOMEPS MOMEPS OMEPS
98
Algorithm efficiency (%)
96
94
92
90
4.16 6.32 8.40
Density of base station (1/km²)
Fig. 10. Algorithm efficiency at different base station densities.
efficiency of each algorithm under different BS densities as its
ratio to the offline optimal when the BS density is 12.57. Fig.
10 presents that there exists a growth in algorithms efficiency
as the density of BS increases from 4.16 to 12.57. This is
because more base stations bring more migration choices
when user migrates services. It is also easier for user to
migrate services to a base station closer to it for higher utility.
To summarize, the denser the base stations are, the better our
algorithms perform.
VII. CONCLUSTION
In this paper, we investigate a user-centric DNN service
migration and exit point selection problem with various
service downtime in the mobile edge computing
environment. We leverage the exit point selection and layer
sharing feature of the container technique to alleviate
performance degradation caused by inevitable service
downtime. To maximize long- term user utility, we first
propose an offline optimal migra- tion and exit point
selection strategy (OMEPS) algorithm by leveraging
dynamic programming when complete future information is
available. To deal with the uncertain user be- havior, we
incorporate a Model Predictive Control framework to the
OMEPS algorithm. And then construct a proactive service
migration and DNN exit point selection (MOMEPS)
algorithm. To cope with the heavy computation overheads
of MOMEPS, we propose a cost-efficient algorithm, smart-
MOMEPS, which introduces a neural network based smart
migration judgement to navigate the performance and compu-
tation overhead trade-off. Finally, we conduct extensive trace-
driven experiments to evaluate our online algorithm. We also
explore the performance of our algorithms under a variety of
system settings and give corresponding analysis.
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