Abstract: Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is a combination of mobile computing and cloud computing. It has become one of the Major Research issue in the industry. Although there are so, many research studies in mobile computing and cloud computing, convergence of these two areas grant further academic efforts towards flourishing MCC. With this aim, this paper presents a review on the background and principle of MCC, characteristics, recent research work, and future research trends. It then analyses the features and infrastructure of mobile cloud computing. The rest of the paper analyses the challenges of mobile cloud computing, summary of some research projects related to this area, and points out promising future research directions.

Keywords: Mobile Cloud Computing; Mobile Computing; Cloud Computing; Research Directions.