Software Engineering Institute

Cyber-foraging is a technique for dynamically augmenting the computing power of resource-limited mobile devices by opportunistically exploiting nearby fixed computing infrastructure. Cloudlet-based cyber-foraging relies on discoverable, generic, forward-deployed servers located in single-hop proximity of mobile devices. We define tactical cloudlets as the infrastructure to support computation offload and data staging at the tactical edge. However, the characteristics of tactical environments—such as dynamic context, limited computing resources, disconnected-intermittent-limited (DIL) network connectivity, and high levels of stress—pose a challenge for the continued operations of mobile systems that leverage cloudlets in tactical environments. We also define survivability of mobile systems as the capability of a system to continue functioning in spite of adversity. This report presents an architecture and experimental results that demonstrate that cyber-foraging using tactical cloudlets increases the survivability of mobile systems.