Paradrop: Enabling Lightweight Multi-tenancy at the Network’s Extreme Edge Peng Liu Dale Willis Suman Banerjee Department of Computer Sciences Department of Computer Sciences Department of Computer Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Wisconsin-Madison Email:
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[email protected] Abstract—We introduce, Paradrop, a specific edge computing This paper presents a specific edge computing framework, platform that provides (modest) computing and storage resources Paradrop, implemented on WiFi Access Points (APs) or other at the “extreme” edge of the network allowing third-party devel- wireless gateways (such as, set-top boxes) which allows third- opers to flexibly create new types of services. This extreme edge of the network is the WiFi Access Point (AP) or the wireless gateway party developers to bring computational functions right into through which all end-device traffic (personal devices, sensors, homes and enterprises. The WiFi AP is a unique platform for etc.) pass through. Paradrop’s focus on the WiFi APs also stems edge computing because of multiple reasons: it is ubiquitous in from the fact that the WiFi AP has unique contextual knowledge homes and enterprises, is always “on” and available, and sits of its end-devices (e.g., proximity, channel characteristics) that are directly in the data path between Internet resources and the end lost as we get deeper into the network. While different variations and implementations of edge computing platforms