Virtual Machine Allocation Research Articles

A cooperative coevolutionary genetic programming hyper-heuristic for multi-objective makespan and cost optimization in cloud workflow scheduling

This study presents a novel multi-objective approach for NP-hard workflow scheduling in cloud computing environments. Traditional rule-based heuristics offer flexibility but lack consistent superiority across all criteria and scenarios. The development of specific rules usually requires tedious manual refinement by experts. To overcome this limitation, our method leverages evolutionary computation and simulation to automatically derive new rules. Moreover, workflow scheduling involves two crucial and related aspects: task scheduling and the allocation of virtual machines. Our contribution includes three distinct algorithms: two that address each decision separately and a third approach that coevolves priority rules for both decisions simultaneously. Computational tests demonstrate superior performance, with an exploration of rules yielding a 72.91% larger hypervolume for optimizing makespan and costs compared to benchmark heuristics from the literature. The validation on unseen instances shows a 90.26% improvement in hypervolume performance, highlighting the robustness of our approach.

DBSCAN based approach for energy efficient VM placement using medium level CPU utilization

Virtual machine placement (VMP) is a popular problem in Cloud Data Centers (CDCs). An efficient virtual machine (VM) allocation is essential for processor speed and energy saving. This is more useful where the CDC uses an Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. To enhance energy savings, we aim to improve the adaptive four thresholds energy-aware framework for VM deployment. We observed that the role of the threshold for identifying the over-loaded host is crucial. In order to determine the appropriate threshold, we employed density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN), medium absolute deviation (MAD), and interquartile range (IQR) using the medium fit power efficient decreasing (MFPED) algorithm. Our proposed algorithm modified medium fit energy efficient decreasing (MMFEED) achieves a reduction in energy consumption of 47.3%, 46.1%, 39%, 23.2%, 10.9%, and 3.4% compared to the IQR, MAD, static threshold (THR), exponential weighted moving average (EWMA), modified energy-efficient virtual machine placement (MEEVMP), and adaptive four threshold energy-aware framework for VM deployment energy efficient (AFED-EF), respectively, under the minimum migration time (MMT) selection policy. The proposed algorithm outperforms these algorithms in terms of energy consumption for VM selection policy MMT.

Enhanced Throttled Load Balancing for Virtual Machine Allocation in Multiple Data Centers

Enhanced Throttled Load Balancing for Virtual Machine Allocation in Multiple Data Centers

Efficient resource allocation in cloud environment using SHO-ANN-based hybrid approach

The cloud computing paradigm provides services to users in an on-demand fashion using high-speed Internet. This Internet-based computing paradigm provides resources on a rent basis without any fault. Virtual machine resource allocation is one of the challenging concerns in a cloud computing environment. The existing static, dynamic, and Meta-Heuristic approaches provide the solution to the virtual machine allocation problem. These techniques stuck with the local optimal solution. The slow convergence rate leads to the optimal solution locally and fails to provide the optimal solution Globally. This manuscript proposes a hybrid Spotted Hyena optimizer and artificial neural network, named the SHO-ANN technique, to provide a solution to the virtual machine assignment problem. The presented hybrid technique is evaluated and analyzed using performance metrics “Energy Consumption (Kwh) (8.54%), Host Utilization (24.8%), Average Execution Time(ms) (26.33%), SLA Violations (1.33%), and Number of Migrations (Counts) (19.73%)”. The spotted hyena optimizer is used to provide the vast data set to the ANN model for better accuracy. The hybrid approach provides an optimal solution globally with high convergence. The experimental results exhibit that the SHO-ANN outperforms the IqMc, SHO, and Genetic approaches using real workload scenarios and fabricated scenarios.

Formal dependability analysis of fault tolerant Virtual Machine allocation strategies in Cloud Radio Access Network

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) has been proposed as a fifth generation (5G) cellular network that is designed to physically separate the Baseband Units (BBUs) from the Remote Radio Heads (RRHs). The BBUs are placed in the BBU pool/hotel, while the RRHs are located in the cells. This separation enables sharing baseband processing resources among RRHs by generating Virtual Machines (VMs) in the BBU pool, leading to radio coordination and energy saving opportunities. Nevertheless, the failure of a BBU can affect several RRHs, causing outages in the radio network. Therefore, designing a reliable and resilient C-RAN is essential to provide high availability and service continuity in case of BBU failure. This paper deals with using formal verification techniques to analyze the performance and the dependability of C-RAN architecture. We propose fault tolerant VM allocation strategies that can handle BBU failures, thus improving the system’s overall reliability. Based on redundancy techniques, these strategies ensure call recovery through migration to functional BBUs in the case of a BBU failure. In order to evaluate the mutual impact of performance measures on the system’s dependability, we develop performability (combination of performance and dependability) Markov Reward Models (MRMs) for the proposed strategies. We use Probabilistic Model Checking (PMC) to check the performability requirements written with Continuous Stochastic Reward Logic (CSRL). The proposed models are implemented and checked using the PRISM model checker, which supports solving MRMs and checking CSRL properties.

EleVMate — A data-driven approach for ‘on-the-fly’ horizontal small datacentre scalability and VM starvation

The volume of data exchanged over the network has increased exponentially over the past few years, driving the need for a new solution. To address this issue, a new layer for computation and storage between the cloud and the user has been introduced to reduce the load on the network. To facilitate this solution, small datacentres have emerged characterized by their limited capacity in terms of computation and storage resources. These datacentres are managed by small fog service providers (SFSPs) and are used to host virtual machines (VMs) with QoS requirements that vary based on application and user subscription. Being limited in capacity, these SFSPs are unable to accept all incoming VM requests, forcing them to reject some VM requests based on QoS requirements. This causes an issue for VMs with minimum QoS requirements as they are kept waiting for unlimited time causing them to starve. VM starvation in SFSPs is a critical issue that has not been addressed in the literature. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose to support the SFSP by horizontally scaling up its resources using volunteer nodes. We propose, EleVMate, a novel management framework to manage the allocation of VMs to the SFSP nodes. Our solution works to prioritize the placement of priority VMs in these datacentres. We validated the solution using a publicly available VM dataset and we concluded that priority influences VM placement in SFSP. Last, our framework has improved the performance of the SFSP by reducing rejection rate by at least 4% with existing solutions.

Efficient cloud data center: An adaptive framework for dynamic Virtual Machine Consolidation

Cloud computing is a thriving and ever-expanding sector in the industry world. This growth has sparked increased interest from organizations seeking to harness its potential. However, the sheer volume of services and offerings in this field has resulted in a noticeable surge in related data. With the rapid evolution and growing demand, cloud computing resource management faces a fresh set of challenges. Resource limitations, such as high maintenance costs, elevated Energy Consumption (EC), and adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLA), are critical concerns for both the cloud computing industry and its user organizations. In this context, taking a proactive approach to resource management and Virtual Machine Consolidation (VMC) has become imperative. The logical management of resources and the consolidation of Virtual Machines (VMs) in a manner that aligns with the requirements and demands of service providers and users have garnered widespread attention. The goal of this proposed paper is to focus on addressing the VMC problem within a unified framework, divided into two main phases. The first phase deals with host workload detection and prediction, while the subsequent phase tackles the selection and allocation of appropriate VMs. In our proposed method, for the first time, we use a Granular Computing (GRC) model, which is an efficient, scalable, and human-centric computational approach. This model exhibits behaviors similar to intelligent human decision-making, as it can simultaneously consider all factors and criteria involved in the problems. We evaluated our proposed method through simulations using CloudSim on various types of workloads. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms in all measurement metrics.

Individual Updating Strategies-based Elephant Herding Optimization Algorithm for Effective Load Balancing in Cloud Environments

In this manuscript, an Individual Updating Strategies-based Elephant Herding Optimization Algorithm are proposed to facilitate the effective load balancing (LB) process in cloud computing. Primary goal of proposed Individual Updating Strategies-based Elephant Herding Optimization Algorithm focus on issuing the workloads pertaining to network links by the purpose of preventing over-utilization and under-utilization of the resources. Here, NIUS-EHOA-LB-CE is proposed to exploit the merits of traditional Elephant Herd Optimization algorithm to achieve superior results in all dimensions of cloud computing. In this NIUS-EHOA-LB-CE achieves the allocation of Virtual Machines for the incoming tasks of cloud, when the number of currently processing tasks of a specific VM is less than the cumulative number of tasks. Also, it attains potential load balancing process differences with the help of each individual virtual machine’s processing time and the mean processing time (MPT) incurred by complete virtual machine. Efficacy of the proposed technique activates the Cloudsim platform. Experimental results of the proposed method shows lower Mean Response time 11.6%, 18.4%, 20.34%and 28.1%, lower Mean Execution Time 78.2%, 65.4%, 40.32% and 52.6% compared with existing methods, like Improved Artificial Bee Colony utilizing Monarchy Butterfly Optimization approach for Load Balancing in Cloud Environments (IABC-MBOA-LB-CE), An improved Hybrid Fuzzy-Ant Colony Algorithm Applied to Load Balancing in Cloud Computing Environment (FACOA-LB-CE), Hybrid firefly and Improved Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization for energy efficient LB in Cloud environments (FF-IMOPSO-LB-CE) and A hybrid gray wolf optimization and Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm for load balancing in cloud computing environment (GWO-PSO-LB-CE).

Cost and response time optimization of edge architectures

The cloud service provider market has recently expanded its offerings by providing edge as a service. This involves offering resources equivalent to those already available in the cloud, but through data centers located closer to the end user, with the goal of improving service latencies. Application providers face the challenge of selecting appropriate resources, both from the edge and cloud, to deploy their applications in a way that minimizes deployment costs while satisfying latency requirements. This paper presents Edarop (EDge ARchitecture OPtimization), an innovative orchestration mechanism for the optimal allocation of virtual machines in geographically distributed edge and cloud infrastructures. Edarop is capable of handling different edge and cloud vendors, each offering various types of VMs in different regions, with different prices, and network latencies. It also supports multiple simultaneous applications with different latency requirements and load profiles. Edarop employs Integer Linear Programming (ILP) to ensure the globally optimal solution within a reasonable time frame for the considered use cases. Several variants of the mechanism are provided, depending on whether the objective is to minimize cost, response times, or both. These variants are compared to each other and to alternative approaches, with the results showing that, unlike other methods, Edarop consistently respects latency constraints while minimizing the proposed objectives.

Dynamic task scheduling in edge cloud systems using deep recurrent neural networks and environment learning approaches

The rapid growth of the cloud computing landscape has created significant challenges in managing the escalating volume of data and diverse resources within the cloud environment, catering to a broad spectrum of users ranging from individuals to large corporations. Ineffectual resource allocation in cloud systems poses a threat to overall performance, necessitating the equitable distribution of resources among stakeholders to ensure profitability and customer satisfaction. This paper addresses the critical issue of resource management in cloud computing through the introduction of a Dynamic Task Scheduling with Virtual Machine allocation (DTS-VM) strategy, incorporating Edge-Cloud computing for the Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed approach begins by employing a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) algorithm to classify user tasks into Low Priority, Mid Priority, and High Priority categories. Tasks are then assigned to Edge nodes based on their priority, optimizing efficiency through the application of the Spotted Hyena Optimization (SHO) algorithm for selecting the most suitable edge node. To address potential overloads on the edge, a Fuzzy approach evaluates offloading decisions using multiple metrics. Finally, optimal Virtual Machine allocation is achieved through the application of the Stable Matching algorithm. The seamless integration of these components ensures a dynamic and efficient allocation of resources, preventing the prolonged withholding of customer requests due to the absence of essential resources. The proposed system aims to enhance overall cloud system performance and user satisfaction while maintaining organizational profitability. The effectiveness of the DTS-VM strategy is validated through comprehensive testing and evaluation, showcasing its potential to address the challenges posed by the diverse and expanding cloud computing landscape.

Deep Learning Modified Reinforcement Learning with Virtual Machine Consolidation for Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has attracted significant attention because of the growing service demands of businesses that outsource computationally intensive tasks to the data center. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of a data center is comprised of hardware resources that consume a great deal of energy and release harmful levels of carbon dioxide. Cloud data centers demand massive amounts of electrical power as modern applications and organizations grow. To prevent resource waste and promote energy efficiency, virtual machines (VMs) must be dispersed over numerous physical machines (PMs) in a data center in the cloud. The actual allocation of VMs to PMs can involve more complex decision-making processes, such as considering the resource utilization, load balancing, performance requirements, and constraints of the system. Advanced techniques, like intelligent placement algorithms or dynamic resource allocation, may be employed to optimize resource utilization and achieve efficient VM distribution across multiple PMs. Cloud service suppliers aim to lower operational expenses by reducing energy consumption while offering clients competitive services. Minimizing large-scale data center power usage while maintaining the quality of service (QoS), especially for social media-based cloud computing systems, is crucial. Consolidating VMs has been highlighted as a promising method for improving resource efficiency and saving energy in data centers. This research provides deep learning augmented reinforcement learning (RL)-based energy efficient and QoS-aware virtual machine consolidation (VMC) approach to meet the difficulties. The proposed deep learning modified reinforcement learning-virtual machine consolidation (DLMRL-VMC) model can motivate both cloud providers and customers to distribute cloud infrastructure resources to achieve high CPU utilization and good energy efficiency as measured by power usage effectiveness (PUE) and data center infrastructure efficiency (DCiE). The suggested model, DLMRL-VMC, offers a VM placement approach based on resource usage and dynamic energy consumption to determine the best-matched host and VM selection strategy, Average Utilization Migration Time (AUMT). Based on AUMT, deep learning modified reinforcement learning (DLMRL) will choose a VM with a low average CPU utilization and a short migration time. The DLMRL-VMC Energy-efficient, Resource Allocation strategy is evaluated on the trace of the CloudSim VM to attain good PUE and CPU utilization.

Discrete-time Markov decision process for performance analysis of virtual machine allocation schemes in C-RAN

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) has been proposed as a cloud architecture to provide a common connected resource pool management. It separates the functionalities of the traditional Base Station (BS) into two parts: the Base Band Unit (BBU) and the Remote Radio Head (RRH). BBUs functions are implemented on the Virtual Machines (VMs) in the cloud over commodity hardware, serving User Equipments (UEs) by generating VMs. In this regard, a more accurate adjustment of the number of VMs in a BBU is a challenge. This paper proposes a VM allocation scheme in C-RAN using the hysteresis and migration mechanisms jointly. The goal is to ensure the system’s load balancing and preserve energy. The hysteresis mechanism with different thresholds adjusts the number of active VMs required to serve all UEs by putting idle VMs in sleep mode and activating them as needed. Whereas, the load balancing is achieved by the proposed allocation scheme and the migration of calls from most loaded to least loaded BBU. We use Discrete-Time Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) to enhance both the performance and energy efficiency in the VM allocation schemes. These objectives are achieved by the different decisions of a controller, who should choose the best decision at each time slot. We analyze the performance of the proposed scheme by Probabilistic Model Checking (PMC). Performance requirements are specified using Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL) suitable for MDP models. We also check multi-objective properties, by generating Pareto curves, to evaluate the tradeoff based on which the controller can decide. We use the PRISM model checker to build and analyze the MDP models.

A Review Study on Energy Consumption in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a fundamental technology for a wide range of computing services, yet its increasing energy demands present substantial environmental and economic challenges. With the rapid growth of Cloud services and applications, increasing number of researches have been focused on energy saving. The need to reduce energy costs is a constant challenge of cloud providers and data centers. This paper offers an extensive review of the issues surrounding energy consumption in cloud computing, with a focus on algorithms associated with the situational awareness, consolidation, allocation, placement/migration, and scheduling of virtual machines and containers. We conduct a critical analysis of studies from 2018 to 2023, comparing various methodologies aimed at achieving energy efficiency without sacrificing performance. This review delineates current trends, identifies gaps in existing research, and proposes directions for future investigations. Our study emphasizes the necessity of cultivating sustainable practices in cloud computing and provides valuable insights into the practical implementation of energy-efficient solutions in cloud environments.

An efficient reducing mechanism for energy consumption in data center using hybrid consolidation techniques

The rise in internet user demand is a major factor in the expansion of infrastructure and the upsurge in energy use in cloud, colocation, and some business data centres. The advent of 5G has compounded the situation, as it substantially gives room for many new types of digital services, resulting in a need for richer consume a lot of energy when no scaling method is applied. Services such as mail, data storage and retrieval and other cloud services also require a lot of high energy consumption which eventually result into carbon(IV) oxide (CO2) emissions to the environment. This research therefore, focuses on lowering the energy usage of a data centre with heterogeneous power awareness either in an idle server state or high-performance state using a novel hybridized algorithm called “DyVoFesLoReMu”, comprising Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling (Dvfs) and a modified Local Regression Minimum Utilization (LrMu). A real dataset (workload) obtained online from PlanetLab consisting of hosts and Virtual Machines (VM) was simulated on a data center in CloudSim 3.0.3. Tool kit with preset parameters consisting of VM Allocation Policy and VM Selection Policy was used. The tool kit was utilised to create cloud infrastructure and simulate the essential features of a cloud environment. The Cloudsim was installed on Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 2019 version on Windows 10 operating system. The hybridized algorithm was compared with other five (5) existing energy reducing algorithms and it was found to be more efficient with a range of 41-90% reduction in energy usage from the ten days workload traces and in comparison with the existing algorithms used for the simulation.

A Dual-Objective Approach for Allocation of Virtual Machine with improved Job Scheduling in Cloud Computing

In Cloud Computing (CC) environment, requests of user are maintained via workloads that are allocated to Virtual Machines (VMs) using scheduling techniques which primarily focus on reducing the time for processing by generating efficient schedules of smaller lengths. The efficient processing of requests also needs larger usage of resources that incurs higher overhead in the form of utilization of energy and optimization of cost utilized by Physical Machines (PMs). Assignment of VMs optimally in the environment of CC for jobs submitted by users is a challenge. In order to obtain better solution involving scheduling of jobs to VMs, considering two parameters utilization of energy and cost, we present a dual-objective approach for VM allocation with improved scheduling of jobs in CC environment. The proposed work aimed to build a dual-objective scheduling model for improved job scheduling, focusing on minimization of cost and utilization of energy at a time. For evaluating performance of dual-objective approach, we utilized two types of benchmark datasets and compared with existing approaches such as Whale, Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Metaheuristic Dynamic VM Allocation (MDVMA) techniques. The results obtained from simulation demonstrated that dual-objective approach performs better in the form of minimization of utilization of energy and cost

Interdependency Attack-aware Secure and Performant Virtual Machine Allocation Policies with Low Attack Efficiency and Coverage

Interdependency Attack-aware Secure and Performant Virtual Machine Allocation Policies with Low Attack Efficiency and Coverage

Dynamic Optimization of Energy Efficiency and Service Level Agreement violation in Cloud Data Centers via Virtual Machine Consolidation

With the escalating proliferation of cloud computing services, cloud data center providers are actively in pursuit of solutions not only to curtail energy consumption but also to efficiently cater to the unique demands of their users, thereby enhancing user satisfaction. The process of consolidating virtual machines emerges as a viable strategy for striking a balance between energy consumption and Service Level Agreement violation (SLAv), potentially surmounting this predicament faced by cloud service providers. This study aims to minimize energy consumption and SLAv to their utmost feasible extent by utilizing the First Median Threshold (FMT) technique for physical host selection and virtual machine allocation, in conjunction with the Maximum Ratio of CPU utilization to memory Utilization (MRCU) method for virtual machine selection within the framework of virtual machine consolidation. This dual-pronged approach not only translates into cost savings for cloud providers but also ensures the delivery of optimal services to users. Furthermore, a novel method has been introduced for selecting virtual machines for migration and appropriately choosing physical hosts to achieve equilibrium between two critical parameters: energy consumption and SLAv. The proposed methodology is implemented and evaluated using the CloudSim simulator, utilizing real-world PlanetLab data. The comprehensive analysis of the simulation results reveals that the proposed approach can significantly reduce energy consumption while effectively mitigating SLAv for users.

Design and analyses of web scraping on burstable virtual machines

SummaryWeb scraping is a widely used technique for decision‐making, collecting, and structuring public data from the internet. As the volume of data continues to grow, the need for more efficient methods of data extraction becomes crucial. This article introduces a novel web scraping framework that utilizes Burstable virtual machines (VMs) on Amazon Web Services with the objective of reducing the monetary cost of execution while ensuring compliance with service level agreements (SLAs). To achieve this, the framework utilizes a combination of fixed and temporary Burstable VMs in a mixed cluster, which can be elastically scaled up to fulfill the SLA and scaled down to minimize monetary costs. Two strategies for handling VM allocation are proposed and evaluated: (i) a queue and SLA‐based strategy that employs queue size information and SLA criteria to determine the required number of VMs for the current scraping requests, and (ii) a credit‐based strategy that incorporates information about Burstable VM credits to effectively manage instance creation and termination. Experimental tests show that the proposed framework meets the defined SLA while achieving cost reductions of up to 74% compared to an approach that executes on fixed‐size clusters of Burstable instances.

A comprehensive survey on load balancing techniques for virtual machines

Cloud computing is an emerging technique with remarkable features such as scalability, high flexibility, and reliability. Since this field is growing exponentially, more users are attracted to fast and better service. Virtual Machine (VM) allocation plays a crucial role in cloud computing optimization; hence, resource distribution is not impacted by machine failure and is migrated with no downtime. Therefore, effective management of virtual machines is necessary for increasing profit, energy-saving, etc. However, it could utilize the virtual machine resources more efficiently because of the increased load, so load balancing is more concentrated. The predominant purpose of load balancing is to balance the available load equally among the nodes to avoid overloading or underloading problems. The present study conducted an extensive survey on virtual machine placement to describe the application of prediction algorithms and to provide more efficient, reliable, high response, and low overhead VM placement. Furthermore, the survey attempted to overview the challenges in load balancing in VM placement and various ideas of state-of-the-art techniques to resolve the issues.

Backup Resource Allocation of Virtual Machines With Two-Stage Probabilistic Protection

In a cloud, protection through backup of virtual machines contained in physical machines (PMs) reduces damage to users due to failure of PMs, such as hardware malfunctions. However, from a resource cost perspective, it is necessary to reduce the amount of capacity for backup while limiting the probability of unsuccessful protection. Existing studies suggest the method of sharing backup capacity among primary resources, but the amount of capacity reduction required to protect is limited. This paper proposes a backup resource allocation model with two-stage probabilistic protection to minimize the total required backup capacity for multiple simultaneous failures of PMs. In probabilistic protection, backup resources are allocated so that the probability of backup failure does not exceed a given survivability parameter which represents the acceptable probability of backup failure. Probabilistic protection which achieves efficient sharing of backup capacity enables flexible allocation and reduces the required backup capacity. In order to increase the flexibility of backup capacity allocation, the proposed model extends the probabilistic protection to two stages. By dividing the protection into two stages, the weight of probability between stages can be adjusted, enabling more effective capacity sharing. Since it is uncertain which primary PMs fail, we apply robust optimization to the probabilistic protection. By using a table that takes into account the survivability parameter and the failure probability of PMs, the proposed model is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming problem. We prove the NP-hardness of considered problem. A heuristic is introduced to solve the optimization problem. The proposed model can reduce the total required backup capacity compared to the models with dedicated protection and one-stage probabilistic protection. The model can also provide protection in a range of survivability parameters that the model with one-stage probabilistic protection cannot satisfy.