Abstract
Edge computing is a crucial technology to solve the problem of computing resources and bandwidth required for extensive edge data processing, as well as for meeting the real-time demands of applications. Container virtualization technology has become the underlying technical basis for edge computing due to its efficient performance. Because the traditional container scaling strategy has issues such as long response times, low resource utilization, and unpredictable container application loads, this article proposes a method for scheduling edge computing resources based on the elastic scaling of containers. Firstly, a container load prediction model (Trend Enhanced-Temporal Convolutional Network, TE-TCN) is designed based on the temporal convolutional neural network, which features an encoder-decoder structure. The encoder extracts potential temporal relationship features from the historical data of the container load, while the decoder identifies the trend item of the container load through the trend enhancement module. Subsequently, the information extracted by the encoder and decoder is fed into the fully connected layer to facilitate container load prediction using the dual-input ResNet method. Secondly, Markov decision process (MDP) is used to model the elastic expansion problem of containers in multi-objective optimization. Utilizing the prediction outcomes of the TE-TCN load prediction model, a time-varying action space is formulated to address the issue of excessive action space in conventional reinforcement learning. Subsequently, a predictive container scaling strategy based on reinforcement learning is devised to align with the application load patterns in the container environment, enabling adaptation to the surge in traffic generated by the container environment. Finally, the experimental results on the WorldCup98 dataset and the real dataset show that the TE-TCN model can accurately predict the container load change. Experiments in the actual environment demonstrate that the proposed strategy reduces the average response time by 16.2% when the burst load arrives, and increases the average CPU utilization by 44.6% when the jitter load occurs.