The rapid growth in demand for computational power driven by modern service applications combined with the shift to the Cloud computing model have led to the establishment of large-scale virtualized data centers. Such data centers consume enormous amounts of electrical energy resulting in high operating costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Dynamic consolidation of virtual machines (VMs) using live migration and switching idle nodes to the sleep mode allows Cloud providers to optimize resource usage and reduce energy consumption. However, the obligation of providing high quality of service to customers leads to the necessity in dealing with the energy-performance trade-off, as aggressive consolidation may lead to performance degradation. Because of the variability of workloads experienced by modern applications, the VM placement should be optimized continuously in an online manner. To understand the implications of the online nature of the problem, we conduct a competitive analysis and prove competitive ratios of optimal online deterministic algorithms for the single VM migration and dynamic VM consolidation problems. Furthermore, we propose novel adaptive heuristics for dynamic consolidation of VMs based on an analysis of historical data from the resource usage by VMs. The proposed algorithms significantly reduce energy consumption, while ensuring a high level of adherence to the service level agreement. We validate the high efficiency of the proposed algorithms by extensive simulations using real-world workload traces from more than a thousand PlanetLab VMs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Optimal online deterministic algorithms and adaptive heuristics for energy and performance efficient dynamic consolidation of virtual machines in Cloud data centers

Elastic resource scaling lets cloud systems meet application service level objectives (SLOs) with minimum resource provisioning costs. In this paper, we present CloudScale, a system that automates fine-grained elastic resource scaling for multi-tenant cloud computing infrastructures. CloudScale employs online resource demand prediction and prediction error handling to achieve adaptive resource allocation without assuming any prior knowledge about the applications running inside the cloud. CloudScale can resolve scaling conflicts between applications using migration, and integrates dynamic CPU voltage/frequency scaling to achieve energy savings with minimal effect on application SLOs. We have implemented CloudScale on top of Xen and conducted extensive experiments using a set of CPU and memory intensive applications (RUBiS, Hadoop, IBM System S). The results show that CloudScale can achieve significantly higher SLO conformance than other alternatives with low resource and energy cost. CloudScale is non-intrusive and light-weight, and imposes negligible overhead (

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CloudScale: elastic resource scaling for multi-tenant cloud systems

Cloud systems require elastic resource allocation to minimize resource provisioning costs while meeting service level objectives (SLOs). In this paper, we present a novel PRedictive Elastic reSource Scaling (PRESS) scheme for cloud systems. PRESS unobtrusively extracts fine-grained dynamic patterns in application resource demands and adjust their resource allocations automatically. Our approach leverages light-weight signal processing and statistical learning algorithms to achieve online predictions of dynamic application resource requirements. We have implemented the PRESS system on Xen and tested it using RUBiS and an application load trace from Google. Our experiments show that we can achieve good resource prediction accuracy with less than 5% over-estimation error and near zero under-estimation error, and elastic resource scaling can both significantly reduce resource waste and SLO violations.

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PRESS: PRedictive Elastic ReSource Scaling for cloud systems

Dynamic consolidation of virtual machines (VMs) is an effective way to improve the utilization of resources and energy efficiency in cloud data centers. Determining when it is best to reallocate VMs from an overloaded host is an aspect of dynamic VM consolidation that directly influences the resource utilization and quality of service (QoS) delivered by the system. The influence on the QoS is explained by the fact that server overloads cause resource shortages and performance degradation of applications. Current solutions to the problem of host overload detection are generally heuristic based, or rely on statistical analysis of historical data. The limitations of these approaches are that they lead to suboptimal results and do not allow explicit specification of a QoS goal. We propose a novel approach that for any known stationary workload and a given state configuration optimally solves the problem of host overload detection by maximizing the mean intermigration time under the specified QoS goal based on a Markov chain model. We heuristically adapt the algorithm to handle unknown nonstationary workloads using the Multisize Sliding Window workload estimation technique. Through simulations with workload traces from more than a thousand PlanetLab VMs, we show that our approach outperforms the best benchmark algorithm and provides approximately 88 percent of the performance of the optimal offline algorithm.

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Managing Overloaded Hosts for Dynamic Consolidation of Virtual Machines in Cloud Data Centers under Quality of Service Constraints

In this paper we present Kingfisher, a {\em cost-aware} system that provides efficient support for elasticity in the cloud by (i) leveraging multiple mechanisms to reduce the time to transition to new configurations, and (ii) optimizing the selection of a virtual server configuration that minimizes the cost. We have implemented a prototype of Kingfisher and have evaluated its efficacy on a laboratory cloud platform. Our experiments with varying application workloads demonstrate that Kingfisher is able to (i) decrease the cost of virtual server resources by as much as $24\%$ compared to the current cost-unaware approach, (ii) reduce by an order of magnitude the time to transition to a new configuration through multiple elasticity mechanisms in the cloud, and (iii), illustrate the opportunity for design alternatives which trade-off the cost of server resources with the time required to scale the application.

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A Cost-Aware Elasticity Provisioning System for the Cloud

Recent advances in hardware and software virtualization offer unprecedented management capabilities for the mapping of virtual resources to physical resources. It is highly desirable to further create a "service hosting abstraction" that allows application owners to focus on service level objectives (SLOs) for their applications. This calls for a resource management solution that achieves the SLOs for many applications in response to changing data center conditions and hides the complexity from both application owners and data center operators. In this paper, we describe an automated capacity and workload management system that integrates multiple resource controllers at three different scopes and time scales. Simulation and experimental results confirm that such an integrated solution ensures efficient and effective use of data center resources while reducing service level violations for high priority applications.

Bret Fort Collins McKee

Papers

1000 Islands: Integrated Capacity and Workload Management for the Next Generation Data Center