Elastic Cloud Research Articles

Cloud Elasticity of Microservices‐Based Applications: A Survey

ABSTRACTElasticity is an essential treatment in Cloud environment employed in academic and industrial contexts. The main purpose of elasticity is to reduce the deployment cost while optimizing computing resources. Multiple studies were conducted to tackle classic applications using monolithic architecture deployed with virtual machines (VMs). However, with the spread of microservice pattern, recent studies have been investigating this new trend using containers. This paper classifies and discusses existing approaches dealing with cloud elasticity. It provides a novel taxonomy for elastic approaches while focusing on microservices‐based solutions. We additionally specify the strength and the shortcomings of each class of works. As a conclusion, we report the challenges for microservices‐based applications elasticity and provide requirements for future investigations.

I-MPaFS: enhancing EDoS attack detection in cloud computing through a data-driven approach

Cloud computing offers cost-effective IT solutions but is susceptible to security threats, particularly the Economic Denial of Sustainability (EDoS) attack. EDoS exploits cloud elasticity and the pay-per-use billing model, forcing users to incur unnecessary costs. This research introduces the Integrated Model Prediction and Feature Selection (I-MPaFS) framework to address EDoS attacks. I-MPaFS framework enhances an existing dataset to improve performance, using the generated data to build a Random Forest model for EDoS detection. Our investigation employs the UNSW-NB15, CSE-CIC-IDS18 and NSL-KDD datasets, demonstrating the proposed method’s superiority over existing techniques. The model achieved recall scores of 99.45% on the UNSW-NB15 dataset, 98.19% on the CSE-CIC-IDS18 dataset, and 99.82% on the NSL-KDD dataset, highlighting its reliability and efficacy in safeguarding cloud users from financial exploitation. This study contributes to the field by evaluating current EDoS detection methods, introducing the I-MPaFS framework, validating its performance with benchmark datasets, and comparing its effectiveness against state-of-the-art techniques. The findings affirm the significant potential of I-MPaFS in enhancing cloud security and protecting users from EDoS attacks.

Towards a Heterogeneous and Elastic Cloud Service System With a Correlation-Based Universal Resource Matching Strategy

Towards a Heterogeneous and Elastic Cloud Service System With a Correlation-Based Universal Resource Matching Strategy

Faster or Cheaper: A Q-learning based cost-effective mixed cluster scaling method for achieving low tail latencies

The cloud elasticity allows users to acquire resources and release useless resources as needed. This feature has attracted more and more web service providers to deploy their latency-crucial, user-oriented applications on cloud platforms. For web service providers, in the case of fluctuating workloads, scaling their server clusters over time could save system expenditures without service quality violations. Therefore, a lot of cloud platforms begin to offer automatic scaling strategies based on threshold-based rules for helping web service providers to save system expenditures. However, building threshold-based rules requires expertise, and such reactive scaling strategies cannot guarantee low and consistent tail latencies. For those proactive scaling strategies depending on predictions, random user behaviors lead to declines in prediction accuracy. In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning based proactive strategy for scaling a mixed cluster, which is composed of a variety of cloud instances. Ensuring the availability and quality of reward signals is the main problem to be solved for algorithms based on standard RL. We design a reward function which could balance service cost, service quality and other parameters which can affect decision-making. We assign different weights to parameters based on their effects on decision-making. In order to avoid the explosion of the state space caused by fluctuating workloads and various server status, we discretize the continuous state space of our model. Experimental results based on TailBench show that our Q-learning based scaling method can maintain low and consistent tail latencies while achieving fewer costs than three common baselines.

Live Supplier Catalog and Pricing for Omnichannel

This paper proposes a technical architecture for an Omni-channel Supplier Catalog that provides real-time price updates. This system leverages a combination of open-source technologies, including Apache Camel, Spark Connector, Kafka Topics, Cassandra database, and Kubernetes, deployed on a resilient and elastic cloud platform. This paper details the data pipeline design, outlining how each component contributes to efficient data ingestion, processing, and dissemination. Additionally, the paper highlights the benefits of using this architecture, including improved decision-making, enhanced operational efficiency, and a seamless omnichannel experience for customers.

PENGUJIAN KINERJA WEB SERVER ELASTIC CLOUD COMPUTE (EC2) FREE TIER PADA AMAZON WEB SERVICE (AWS) MENGGUNAKAN JMETER

The research aims to evaluate the capacity of Amazon Web Service's (AWS) Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) Free Tier Web Server using the JMeter testing tool. The objective is to ascertain the extent of the server's load-bearing capabilities. Tests were conducted, loading 500 users within a 10-second range and 1000 users within a 1-second range. Despite being a free service, test results showed the server's capability to handle high loads without errors (0% error rate). These findings illustrate the free service's ability to maintain stable performance under significant user loads. The utilization of EC2 Free Tier on AWS demonstrates its capacity to handle heavy tasks without compromising service quality. From about 5 steps in each of two tests, the value for sample time / response time in the initial test of the Amazon Web Service Web server is 59 / ms (millisecond) and the average latency value in the second test, namely 7.213 /ms (millisecond). Both of these gained CPU Utilization from minum, average and maximum with final rate are zero Error. This outcome concludes that the free server possesses robust and reliable capabilities, instilling confidence in an effective and efficient server solution even under high usage levels without additional costs.

FedAdaSS: Federated Learning with Adaptive Parameter Server Selection Based on Elastic Cloud Resources

FedAdaSS: Federated Learning with Adaptive Parameter Server Selection Based on Elastic Cloud Resources

Cloud-Based Solutions for Video Streaming and Big Data Testing

In the era of digital transformation, cloud-based solutions have revolutionized the video streaming industry and big data testing methodologies. As consumer demand for high-quality, on-demand video content surges, traditional on-premises infrastructure often falls short in meeting scalability, performance, and cost-efficiency requirements. Cloud-based platforms, with their scalable resources and flexibility, have become essential in addressing these challenges. This paper explores the benefits and implementation strategies of cloud-based solutions for video streaming and big data testing, focusing on how these technologies enhance performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness Video streaming services require a robust infrastructure capable of handling large volumes of data and delivering seamless user experiences across diverse devices and network conditions. Cloud-based video streaming solutions offer several advantages, including the ability to dynamically scale resources based on user demand, optimize content delivery through content delivery networks (CDNs), and provide a global reach without the need for extensive physical infrastructure. By leveraging cloud services, streaming platforms can reduce latency, enhance video quality, and improve overall user satisfaction. Traditional testing methods often struggle to cope with the complexity and volume of big data. Cloud-based testing platforms provide scalable environments where testers can simulate various data scenarios, execute performance tests, and analyze results with greater efficiency. The cloud's elasticity allows for on-demand provisioning of testing resources, making it easier to handle the dynamic nature of big data and conduct comprehensive testing without investing in expensive hardware.

Infodemics surveillance system to detect and analyze health misinformation using big data and AI

Abstract Background Health misinformation disseminated on social media detrimentally affects the public's reactions toward public health measures. This has led to costly and harmful public health crises. Due to a lack of a comprehensive expert system that collects and analyzes large volumes of social media data, public health officials are incapable of mitigating health misinformation trends online. This study aimed to remedy this by designing and developing a big data pipeline and ecosystem (Health Misinformation Analysis System (HMAS)) capable of identifying and analyzing health misinformation online. Methods The HMAS system relies on Python, Elastic Stack, and the Twitter V2 API as the main technologies forming the backbone of the system. It comprises of five main components: (1) Data Extraction Framework (DEF); (2) Latent Dirichlet Allocation Topic Model; (3) Sentiment Analyzer; (4) Misinformation Classifier; (5) Elastic Cloud Deployment. Components 1-4 are hosted on a virtual machine with low computing and memory requirements. Through the DEF, HMAS extracts data from the Twitter V2 API. The HMAS expert system uses pre-trained models to perform automatic health misinformation analysis. The analyzed data are loaded and visualized in Elastic Cloud through dashboards and analytics. Results The HMAS system performance is accurate and efficient. It has been successfully utilized by independent investigators to extract significant insights, including a fluoride-related health misinformation use case, which analyzed data from 2015 to 2021. Moreover, HMAS has been applied to a vaccine hesitancy use case (2007-2022) and a heat-related illnesses use case (2011-2022). Conclusions The novel HMAS expert system can potentially aid public health officials globally to detect and analyze concerning trends in health misinformation online. This system can also grow to integrate social media data from several platforms for multiplatform analysis and support non-Western language content. Key messages • The novel HMAS pipeline can collect, detect, and analyze the rapidly increasing amounts of misinformation proliferating on social media related to a particular topic or set of related topics. • Identifying and monitoring health misinformation trends prevalent on social media through analytics dashboards and anomaly/risk detection alerts can lead to prompt governmental intervention.

The Innovation of GIS Service Mode Based on “Grid Integration” and “Elastic Cloud”

Abstract This paper firstly investigates the theory and method of geospatial information services and grid integration model in the geographic information grid, intending to locate the parameter coordinates of the grid integration model into the GeoSOT-3D profiling framework. Secondly, the framework of the consumption structure between its services and cloud resources is established by the elastic cloud model based on the computation and storage capabilities provided by the shared grid infrastructure. And use the steady-state theoretical foundation for analysis to assess the service quality of each type of service and reflect the service quality of the GIS service model as a whole. Finally, a GIS service platform based on the grid integration model and elastic cloud model is constructed based on the existing open geographic information standards, service technology system, and grid technology. The research results show that the operation speed of the GIS service platform proposed in this paper is increased by 16.3%, the estimated cost has been reduced by 23.3%, and the service evaluation of the platform is improved by 43.6%. The GIS service platform based on the grid integration model and elastic cloud model has the advantages of global uniformity, multi-scale and spatial 2-3D consistency, which provides a new model with high economy and rapid response time for geographic information processing.

Designing a secure and high-performing e-commerce platform for public cloud

This study explores the design and implementation of a secure and high-performing e-commerce platform using public cloud infrastructure. The rising popularity of e-commerce has emphasized the need for scalable, cost-efficient, and secure platforms that can meet the dynamic needs of users. Cloud computing provides the necessary resources for building such platforms, but security and performance remain critical concerns. This paper examines strategies for securing an e-commerce platform hosted on a public cloud while optimizing for performance. Data collection, instrumentations, and analysis were employed to identify key factors influencing the security and performance of the platform. The results however shows a multi-layered security architecture, along with an elastic cloud infrastructure, can significantly enhance platform performance. Recommendations are provided for future research and practical implementation.

A Centralized Multi-Criteria Method for Scheduling Tasks in a Cloud Computing Environment

Task scheduling determines the order of mapping tasks to virtual machines to meet objectives. In this paper, a batch mode heuristic method that is centralized, dynamic, and multi-objective has been presented for scheduling independent tasks with a deadline and belonging to several user levels, using the cloud elasticity in the public cloud environment. In this method, it has been intended to improve the objectives of makespan, deadline violation, total execution cost, and load balancing by considering the tasks’ prioritization based on the criteria of user level, deadline, task length, and selection of heterogeneous virtual machines according to processing power, workload and usage cost. The proposed method was simulated using the CloudSim tool. Besides, the method’s ability to achieve the mentioned goals has been evaluated in comparison with similar methods. The evaluation results, established on standard test data, show that the proposed method has a good performance in improving its objectives.

Showcasing Data Management Challenges for Future IoT Applications with NebulaStream

Data management systems will face several new challenges in supporting IoT applications during the coming years. These challenges arise from managing large numbers of heterogeneous IoT devices and require combining elastic cloud and fog resources in unified fog-cloud environments. In this demonstration, we introduce a smart city simulation called IoTropolis and use it to create interactive eHealth and Smart Grid application scenarios. We use these scenarios to showcase three key challenges of unified fog-cloud environments. Furthermore, we demonstrate how our recently proposed data management system for the IoT NebulaStream addresses these challenges. Visitors to our demonstration can configure and interact with the scenarios to manage electricity usage in IoTropolis or to distribute patients across different hospitals. Thereby, visitors can actively engage with the challenges showcased by IoTropolis and utilize NebulaStream to address them. As a result, our demonstration enables visitors to experience data management for future IoT applications.

Fast DRL-based scheduler configuration tuning for reducing tail latency in edge-cloud jobs

Edge-cloud applications are rapidly prevailing in recent years and pose the challenge of using both resource-strenuous edge devices and elastic cloud resources under dynamic workloads. Efficient resource allocation on edge-cloud jobs via cluster schedulers (e.g. Kubernetes/Volcano scheduler) is essential to guarantee their performance, e.g. tail latency, and such allocation is sensitive to scheduler configurations such as applied scheduling algorithms and task restart/discard policy. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is increasingly applied to optimize scheduling decisions. However, DRL faces the conundrum of achieving high rewards at a dauntingly long training time (e.g. hours or days), making it difficult to tune the scheduler configurations online in accordance to dynamically changing edge-cloud workloads and resources. For such an issue, this paper proposes EdgeTuner, a fast scheduler configuration tuning approach that efficiently leverages DRL to reduce tail latency of edge-cloud jobs. The enabling feature of EdgeTuner is to effectively simulate the execution of edge-cloud jobs under different scheduler configurations and thus quickly estimate these configurations’ influence on job performance. The simulation results allow EdgeTuner to timely train a DRL agent in order to properly tune scheduler configurations in dynamic edge-cloud environment. We implement EdgeTuner in both Kubernetes and Volcano schedulers and extensively evaluate it on real workloads driven by Alibaba production traces. Our results show that EdgeTuner outperforms prevailing scheduling algorithms by achieving much lower tail latency while accelerating DRL training speed by an average of 151.63x.

Tweeting for Health Using Real-time Mining and Artificial Intelligence-Based Analytics: Design and Development of a Big Data Ecosystem for Detecting and Analyzing Misinformation on Twitter.

Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments worldwide and their citizens. However, public health officials need access to a comprehensive system capable of mining and analyzing large volumes of social media data in real time. This study aimed to design and develop a big data pipeline and ecosystem (UbiLab Misinformation Analysis System [U-MAS]) to identify and analyze false or misleading information disseminated via social media on a certain topic or set of related topics. U-MAS is a platform-independent ecosystem developed in Python that leverages the Twitter V2 application programming interface and the Elastic Stack. The U-MAS expert system has 5 major components: data extraction framework, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model, sentiment analyzer, misinformation classification model, and Elastic Cloud deployment (indexing of data and visualizations). The data extraction framework queries the data through the Twitter V2 application programming interface, with queries identified by public health experts. The LDA topic model, sentiment analyzer, and misinformation classification model are independently trained using a small, expert-validated subset of the extracted data. These models are then incorporated into U-MAS to analyze and classify the remaining data. Finally, the analyzed data are loaded into an index in the Elastic Cloud deployment and can then be presented on dashboards with advanced visualizations and analytics pertinent to infodemiology and infoveillance analysis. U-MAS performed efficiently and accurately. Independent investigators have successfully used the system to extract significant insights into a fluoride-related health misinformation use case (2016 to 2021). The system is currently used for a vaccine hesitancy use case (2007 to 2022) and a heat wave-related illnesses use case (2011 to 2022). Each component in the system for the fluoride misinformation use case performed as expected. The data extraction framework handles large amounts of data within short periods. The LDA topic models achieved relatively high coherence values (0.54), and the predicted topics were accurate and befitting to the data. The sentiment analyzer performed at a correlation coefficient of 0.72 but could be improved in further iterations. The misinformation classifier attained a satisfactory correlation coefficient of 0.82 against expert-validated data. Moreover, the output dashboard and analytics hosted on the Elastic Cloud deployment are intuitive for researchers without a technical background and comprehensive in their visualization and analytics capabilities. In fact, the investigators of the fluoride misinformation use case have successfully used the system to extract interesting and important insights into public health, which have been published separately. The novel U-MAS pipeline has the potential to detect and analyze misleading information related to a particular topic or set of related topics.

Self-Adaptation in Industry: A Survey

Computing systems form the backbone of many areas in our society, from manufacturing to traffic control, healthcare, and financial systems. When software plays a vital role in the design, construction, and operation, these systems are referred to as software-intensive systems. Self-adaptation equips a software-intensive system with a feedback loop that either automates tasks that otherwise need to be performed by human operators or deals with uncertain conditions. Such feedback loops have found their way to a variety of practical applications; typical examples are an elastic cloud to adapt computing resources and automated server management to respond quickly to business needs. To gain insight into the motivations for applying self-adaptation in practice, the problems solved using self-adaptation and how these problems are solved, and the difficulties and risks that industry faces in adopting self-adaptation, we performed a large-scale survey. We received 184 valid responses from practitioners spread over 21 countries. Based on the analysis of the survey data, we provide an empirically grounded overview the of state of the practice in the application of self-adaptation. From that, we derive insights for researchers to check their current research with industrial needs, and for practitioners to compare their current practice in applying self-adaptation. These insights also provide opportunities for applying self-adaptation in practice and pave the way for future industry-research collaborations.

CAMPUS CLOUD: EMPOWERING UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT WEB APPLICATION WITH CLOUD-HOSTED DOCKER TECHNOLOGY ON AWS

Abstract—In this article I have deployed a web-based applica- tion to Docker using Amazon web service (EC2 Instance). Elastic Cloud Compute service is used to the run the docker applications on scalable clusters. Amazon EC2 is fully managed and secured Container orchestration service that makes to deploy, manage and scale Dockerized web application. Docker containers on an EC2 instance to run a university management system website on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. For educational institutions, a university management system is a crucial tool that enables administrators to manage student records, course information, and other crucial data. The introduction to Docker, a containerization technology that makes it simple to build and manage web applications, follows a discussion of the advantages of hosting a university management system website on the cloud. The next section of the paper focuses on the AWS EC2 service and its capabilities, such as its capability for flexible computing and scalability. The paper also offers a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Docker to deploy a university administration system website on an EC2 instance, including instructions on how to set up the EC2 instance, install and configure Docker, and deploy the website code in a Docker container. Elastic Load Balancer and Auto Scaling, two AWS services, are used in the process of setting up security and scalability for the website. The benefits of using Docker to host a university administration system website on AWS EC2 are outlined in the paper’s conclusion, along with predictions for the development of cloud-based web application hosting. This research paper offers a thorough overview of the steps involved in hosting a university management system website using Docker on AWS EC2, making it a useful tool for educational institutions looking to improve their information management procedures and take advantage of cloud computing and Docker- Containerization.

Deployment of Real-time Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning Clinical Decision Support in the Electronic Health Record: Pipeline Implementation for an Opioid Misuse Screener in Hospitalized Adults.

The clinical narrative in electronic health records (EHRs) carries valuable information for predictive analytics; however, its free-text form is difficult to mine and analyze for clinical decision support (CDS). Large-scale clinical natural language processing (NLP) pipelines have focused on data warehouse applications for retrospective research efforts. There remains a paucity of evidence for implementing NLP pipelines at the bedside for health care delivery. We aimed to detail a hospital-wide, operational pipeline to implement a real-time NLP-driven CDS tool and describe a protocol for an implementation framework with a user-centered design of the CDS tool. The pipeline integrated a previously trained open-source convolutional neural network model for screening opioid misuse that leveraged EHR notes mapped to standardized medical vocabularies in the Unified Medical Language System. A sample of 100 adult encounters were reviewed by a physician informaticist for silent testing of the deep learning algorithm before deployment. An end user interview survey was developed to examine the user acceptability of a best practice alert (BPA) to provide the screening results with recommendations. The planned implementation also included a human-centered design with user feedback on the BPA, an implementation framework with cost-effectiveness, and a noninferiority patient outcome analysis plan. The pipeline was a reproducible workflow with a shared pseudocode for a cloud service to ingest, process, and store clinical notes as Health Level 7 messages from a major EHR vendor in an elastic cloud computing environment. Feature engineering of the notes used an open-source NLP engine, and the features were fed into the deep learning algorithm, with the results returned as a BPA in the EHR. On-site silent testing of the deep learning algorithm demonstrated a sensitivity of 93% (95% CI 66%-99%) and specificity of 92% (95% CI 84%-96%), similar to published validation studies. Before deployment, approvals were received across hospital committees for inpatient operations. Five interviews were conducted; they informed the development of an educational flyer and further modified the BPA to exclude certain patients and allow the refusal of recommendations. The longest delay in pipeline development was because of cybersecurity approvals, especially because of the exchange of protected health information between the Microsoft (Microsoft Corp) and Epic (Epic Systems Corp) cloud vendors. In silent testing, the resultant pipeline provided a BPA to the bedside within minutes of a provider entering a note in the EHR. The components of the real-time NLP pipeline were detailed with open-source tools and pseudocode for other health systems to benchmark. The deployment of medical artificial intelligence systems in routine clinical care presents an important yet unfulfilled opportunity, and our protocol aimed to close the gap in the implementation of artificial intelligence-driven CDS. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05745480; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05745480.

Introducing an adaptive model forauto‐scalingcloud computing based on workload classification

SummaryWith the increasing expansion of cloud computing services, one of the main goals of researchers is to solve its major challenges. Cloud service providers must satisfy the service level agreement for customers and prevent resource wastage as much as possible. Without a precise, optimal, and dynamic policy, this is unattainable. The key idea is the ability to acquire resources as you need them and release resources when you no longer need them, named “Cloud Elasticity.” Elasticity is a trade‐off between resource acquisition and release, and if this optimization is done best, the service level agreement will be fully achieved and the cloud provider will have the least waste of resources. The researchers used machine learning techniques to predict user workload and decide to scale up/out the resources. A challenging issue is the different characteristics of the users' workloads. The results show that each prediction algorithm works well on a class of users' workloads not all. Hence, in this study, a new architecture has been suggested to automatically classify the workloads based on their sequential statistical characteristics. First, the sequential statistical characteristics of the users' workload are extracted and then a trained neural network classifies the user's workload. The developed adaptive model chooses the best suitable algorithm among LR, SVM, and ARIMA to predict the workload. The results indicate a 10% improvement in forecast error.

InfiniStore: Elastic Serverless Cloud Storage

Cloud object storage such as AWS S3 is cost-effective and highly elastic but relatively slow, while high-performance cloud storage such as AWS ElastiCache is expensive and provides limited elasticity. We present a new cloud storage service called ServerlessMemory, which stores data using the memory of serverless functions. ServerlessMemory employs a sliding-window-based memory management strategy inspired by the garbage collection mechanisms used in the programming language to effectively segregate hot/cold data and provides fine-grained elasticity, good performance, and a pay-per-access cost model with extremely low cost. We then design and implement InfiniStore, a persistent and elastic cloud storage system, which seamlessly couples the function-based ServerlessMemory layer with a persistent, inexpensive cloud object store layer. InfiniStore enables durability despite function failures using a fast parallel recovery scheme built on the auto-scaling functionality of a FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) platform. We evaluate InfiniStore extensively using both microbenchmarking and two real-world applications. Results show that InfiniStore has more performance benefits for objects larger than 10 MB compared to AWS ElastiCache and Anna, and InfiniStore achieves 26.25% and 97.24% tenant-side cost reduction compared to InfiniCache and ElastiCache, respectively.