Autoscaling is a hallmark of cloud computing as it allows flexible just-in-time allocation and release of computational resources in response to dynamic and often unpredictable workloads. This is especially important for web applications whose workload is time dependent and prone to flash crowds. Most of them follow the 3-tier architectural pattern, and are divided into presentation, application domain and data layers. In this work we focus on the application layer. Reactive autoscaling policies of the type "Instantiate a new Virtual Machine (VM) when the average server CPU utilisation reaches X " have been used successfully since the dawn of cloud computing. But which VM type is the most suitable for the specific application at the moment remains an open question. In this work, we propose an approach for dynamic VM type selection. It uses a combination of online machine learning techniques, works in real time and adapts to changes in the users' workload patterns, application changes as well as middleware upgrades and reconfigurations. We have developed a prototype, which we tested with the CloudStone benchmark deployed on AWS EC2. Results show that our method quickly adapts to workload changes and reduces the total cost compared to the industry standard approach.
The area of static computing resource management has been well studied in the context of grids, clouds, and even multi-clouds @cite_28 . However, the field of dynamic resource management in response to continuously varying workloads, which is especially important for web facing applications @cite_28 , is still in its infancy. Horizontal autoscaling policies are the predominant approach for dynamic resource management and thus they have gained significant attention in recent years.
@cite_28
2149027035 2108108865 1936787251 2037948924
In computing clouds, it is desirable to avoid wasting resources as a result of under-utilization and to avoid lengthy response times as a result of over-utilization. In this paper, we propose a new approach for dynamic autonomous resource management in computing clouds. The main contribution of this work is two-fold. First, we adopt a distributed architecture where resource management is decomposed into independent tasks, each of which is performed by Autonomous Node Agents that are tightly coupled with the physical machines in a data center. Second, the Autonomous Node Agents carry out configurations in parallel through Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis using the PROMETHEE method. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is promising in terms of scalability, feasibility and flexibility. Significant achievements have been made for automated allocation of cloud resources. However, the performance of applications may be poor in peak load periods, unless their cloud resources are dynamically adjusted. Moreover, although cloud resources dedicated to different applications are virtually isolated, performance fluctuations do occur because of resource sharing, and software or hardware failures (e.g. unstable virtual machines, power outages, etc.). In this paper, we propose a decentralized economic approach for dynamically adapting the cloud resources of various applications, so as to statistically meet their SLA performance and availability goals in the presence of varying loads or failures. According to our approach, the dynamic economic fitness of a Web service determines whether it is replicated or migrated to another server, or deleted. The economic fitness of a Web service depends on its individual performance constraints, its load, and the utilization of the resources where it resides. Cascading performance objectives are dynamically calculated for individual tasks in the application workflow according to the user requirements. By fully implementing our framework, we experimentally proved that our adaptive approach statistically meets the performance objectives under peak load periods or failures, as opposed to static resource settings. Vertical elasticity is recognized as a key enabler for efficient resource utilization of cloud infrastructure through fine-grained resource provisioning, e.g., allowing CPU cycles to be leased for as short as a few seconds. However, little research has been done to support vertical elasticity where the focus is mostly on a single resource, either CPU or memory, while an application may need arbitrary combinations of these resources at different stages of its execution. Nonetheless, the existing techniques cannot be readily used as-is without proper orchestration since they may lead to either under-or over-provisioning of resources and consequently result in undesirable behaviors such as performance disparity. The contribution of this paper is the design of an autonomic resource controller using a fuzzy control approach as a coordination technique. The novel controller dynamically adjusts the right amount of CPU and memory required to meet the performance objective of an application, namely its response time. We perform a thorough experimental evaluation using three different interactive benchmark applications, RUBiS, RUBBoS, and Olio, under workload traces generated based on open and closed system models. The results show that the coordination of memory and CPU elasticity controllers using the proposed fuzzy control provisions the right amount of resources to meet the response time target without over-committing any of the resource types. In contrast, with no coordinating between controllers, the behaviour of the system is unpredictable e.g., the application performance may be met but at the expense of over-provisioning of one of the resources, or application crashing due to severe resource shortage as a result of conflicting decisions. Continuously adjusting the horizontal scaling of applications hosted by data centers appears as a good candidate to automatic control approaches allocating resources in closed-loop given their current workload. Despite several attempts, real applications of these techniques in cloud computing infrastructures face some difficulties. Some of them essentially turn back to the core concepts of automatic control: controllability, inertia of the controlled system, gain and stability. In this paper, considering our recent work to build a management framework dedicated to automatic resource allocation in virtualized applications, we attempt to identify from experiments the sources of instabilities in the controlled systems. As examples, we analyze two types of policies: threshold-based and reinforcement learning techniques to dynamically scale resources. The experiments show that both approaches are tricky and that trying to implement a controller without looking at the way the controlled system reacts to actions, both in time and in amplitude, is doomed to fail. We discuss both lessons learned from the experiments in terms of simple yet key points to build good resource management policies, and longer term issues on which we are currently working to manage contracts and reinforcement learning efficiently in cloud controllers.