Deepfogsim: A toolbox for execution and performance evaluation of the inference phase of conditional deep neural networks with early exits atop distributed fog platforms

The recent introduction of the so-called Conditional Neural Networks (CDNNs) with multiple early exits, executed atop virtualized multi-tier Fog platforms, makes feasible the real-time and energy-efficient execution of analytics required by future Internet applications. However, until now, toolkits for the evaluation of energy-vs.-delay performance of the inference phase of CDNNs executed on such platforms, have not been available. Motivated by these considerations, in this contribution, we present DeepFogSim. It is a MATLAB-supported software toolbox aiming at testing the performance of virtualized technological platforms for the real-time distributed execution of the inference phase of CDNNs with early exits under IoT realms. The main peculiar features of the proposed DeepFogSim toolbox are that: (i) it allows the joint dynamic energy-aware optimization of the Fog-hosted computing-networking resources under hard constraints on the tolerated inference delays; (ii) it allows the repeatable and customizable simulation of the resulting energy-delay performance of the overall Fog execution platform; (iii) it allows the dynamic tracking of the performed resource allocation under time-varying operating conditions and/or failure events; and (iv) it is equipped with a user-friendly Graphic User Interface (GUI) that supports a number of graphic formats for data rendering. Some numerical results give evidence for about the actual capabilities of the proposed DeepFogSim toolbox.