GPU-aware resource management in heterogeneous cloud data centers

Abstract

The power of rapid scalability and easy maintainability of cloud services is driving many high-performance computing applications from company server racks into cloud data centers. With the evolution of Graphics Processing Units, composing of an extensive array of parallel computing single-instruction-multiple-data processors are being considered as a platform for high-performance computing because of their high throughput. Many cloud providers have begun offering GPU-enabled services for the users where GPUs are essential (for high computational power) to meet the desired Quality-of-service. Virtual machine placement and load balancing the GPUs in the virtualized environments like the cloud is still an evolving area of research and it is of prime importance to achieve higher resource efficiency and also to save energy. The current VM placement techniques do not consider the impact of VM workload type and GPU memory status on the VM placement decisions. This paper discusses the current issues with the First Fit policy of virtual machine placement used in VMWare Horizon and proposes a GPU-aware VM placement technique for GPU-enabled virtualized environments like cloud data centers. The experiments conducted using the synthetic workloads indicate reduction in the energy consumption, reduction in search space of physical hosts, and the makespan of the system. It also presents a summary of the current challenges for GPU resource management in virtualized environments and specific issues in developing cloud applications targeting GPUs under the virtualization layer.