Microservices-Based Resource Provisioning for Multi-User Cloud VR in Edge Networks

Cloud virtual reality (VR) is attracting attention in terms of its lightweight head-mounted display (HMD), providing telepresence and mobility. However, it is still in the research stages due to motion-to-photon (MTP) latency, the need for high-speed network infrastructure, and large-scale traffic processing problems. These problems are expected to be partially solved through edge computing, but the limited computing resource capacity of the infrastructure presents new challenges. In particular, in order to efficiently provide multi-user content such as remote meetings on edge devices, resource provisioning is needed that considers the application’s traffic patterns and computing resource requirements at the same time. In this study, we present a microservice architecture (MSA)-based application to provide multi-user cloud VR in edge computing and propose a scheme for planning an efficient service deployment considering the characteristics of each service. The proposed scheme not only guarantees the MTP latency threshold for all users but also aims to reduce networking and computing resource waste. The proposed scheme was evaluated by simulating various scenarios, and the results were compared to several studies. It was confirmed that the proposed scheme represents better performance metrics than the comparison schemes in most cases from the perspectives of networking, computing, and MTP latency.