Exploiting power-of-choices for load balancing in fog computing

Power-of-random choices is a well-known phenomenon exploited in load balancing algorithms to achieve an extraordinary improvement at low cost. These algorithms are particularly suitable for the Fog computing model, since they don't require coordination among different fog nodes when they decide to mutually share their resources. In this paper, we propose LL(F, T ) a power-of-random choices based distributed peer-to-peer load balancing algorithm running on a set of autonomous cooperating fog nodes, where F is the protocol fan-out and T a threshold. Nodes implement a random choice over F fog nodes when their current load is above T. Through a mathematical analysis and preliminary simulations we show that tuning T very close to the node saturation condition, this algorithm achieves practically the same performance of its classical implementation requiring a single global scheduler, without the need for each and every job execution to be preceded by a time costly probing phase, a clear benefit for the low delay requirement of fog applications.