A Survey on Cloud Computing for Mobile Users: Making Smartphones Last Longer with Computation Offload

Cloud computing is Modern day's wonder. It is not a product but a service, which provides shared resources, software, and information to computers and other devices like smartphones as a utility over a network mainly internet[1]. Resources namely memory, storage space, processor, etc are not available at user's end explicitly. Service providers own these resources and user access them via the Internet. It comes with many advantages for business like lower operation cost, low capital investment, shorter startup time for new services, lower maintenance cost. Cloud computing is a boon for shifting computing from desktops to cloud. Now the new paradigm should be cloud computing for mobile users. The limitations for mobile cloud computing are limited availability of energy and wireless bandwidth. Mobile Cloud Computing combines cloud computing and mobile resources to overcome obstacles related to the performance (like battery life and bandwidth), environment (heterogeneity, scalability, and availability), and security (reliability, security and privacy). In this paper it is discussed how cloud computing may provide energy saving to mobile users and hence increasing the battery life of the mobile.