  The trend towards the cloudification of the 3GPP LTE mobile network
architecture and the emergence of federated cloud infrastructures call for
alternative service delivery strategies for improved user experience and
efficient resource utilization. We propose Follow-Me Cloud (FMC), a design
tailored to this environment, but with a broader applicability, which allows
mobile users to always be connected via the optimal data anchor and mobility
gateways, while cloud-based services follow them and are delivered via the
optimal service point inside the cloud infrastructure. FMC applies a
Markov-Decision-Process-based algorithm for cost-effective,
performance-optimized service migration decisions, while two alternative
schemes to ensure service continuity and disruption-free operation are
proposed, based on either Software Defined Networking technologies or the
Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol. Numerical results from our analytic
model for FMC, as well as testbed experiments with the two alternative FMC
implementations we have developed, demonstrate quantitatively and qualitatively
the advantages it can bring about.
