EdgeWorkflowReal: An Edge Computing based Workflow Execution Engine for Smart Systems

Current cloud-based smart systems suffer from weaknesses such as high response latency, limited network bandwidth and the restricted computing power of smart end devices which seriously affect the system's QoS (Quality of Service). Recently, given its advantages of low latency, high bandwidth and location awareness, edge computing has become a promising solution for smart systems. However, the development of edge computing based smart systems is a very challenging job for software developers who do not have the skills for the creation of edge computing environments. The management of edge computing resources and computing tasks is also very challenging. Workflow technology has been widely used in smart systems to automate task and resource management, but there does not yet exist a real-world deployable edge computing based workflow execution engine. To fill this gap, we present EdgeWorkflowReal, an edge computing based workflow execution engine for smart systems. EdgeWorkflowReal supports: 1) automatic creation of a real edge computing environment according to user settings; 2) visualized modelling of edge workflow applications; and 3) automatic deployment, monitoring and performance evaluation of edge workflow applications in a smart system.