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Control Strategies for Improving Cloud Service Robustness

Dürango, Jonas LU (2016) In Research Reports TFRT-3270
Abstract
This thesis addresses challenges in increasing the robustness of cloud-deployed applications and services to unexpected events and dynamic workloads. Without precautions, hardware failures and unpredictable large traffic variations can quickly degrade the performance of an application due to mismatch between provisioned resources and capacity needs. Similarly, disasters, such as power outages and fire, are unexpected events on larger scale that threatens the integrity of the underlying infrastructure on which an application is deployed.

First, the self-adaptive software concept of brownout is extended to replicated cloud applications. By monitoring the performance of each application replica, brownout is able to counteract... (More)
This thesis addresses challenges in increasing the robustness of cloud-deployed applications and services to unexpected events and dynamic workloads. Without precautions, hardware failures and unpredictable large traffic variations can quickly degrade the performance of an application due to mismatch between provisioned resources and capacity needs. Similarly, disasters, such as power outages and fire, are unexpected events on larger scale that threatens the integrity of the underlying infrastructure on which an application is deployed.

First, the self-adaptive software concept of brownout is extended to replicated cloud applications. By monitoring the performance of each application replica, brownout is able to counteract temporary overload situations by reducing the computational complexity of jobs entering the system. To avoid existing load balancers interfering with the brownout functionality, brownout-aware load balancers are introduced. Simulation experiments show that the proposed load balancers outperform existing load balancers in providing a high quality of service to as many end users as possible. Experiments in a testbed environment further show how a replicated brownout-enabled application is able to maintain high performance during overloads as compared to its non-brownout equivalent.

Next, a feedback controller for cloud autoscaling is introduced. Using a novel way of modeling the dynamics of typical cloud application, a mechanism similar to the classical Smith predictor to compensate for delays in reconfiguring resource provisioning is presented. Simulation experiments show that the feedback controller is able to achieve faster control of the response times of a cloud application as compared to a threshold-based controller.

Finally, a solution for handling the trade-off between performance and disaster tolerance for geo-replicated cloud applications is introduced. An automated mechanism for differentiating application traffic and replication traffic, and dynamically managing their bandwidth allocations using an MPC controller is presented and evaluated in simulation. Comparisons with commonly used static approaches reveal that the proposed solution in overload situations provides increased flexibility in managing the trade-off between performance and data consistency. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
supervisor
organization
publishing date
type
Thesis
publication status
published
subject
in
Research Reports TFRT-3270
pages
111 pages
publisher
Department of Automatic Control, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund University
ISSN
0280-5316
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Series Information: Publication Series: Licentiate Theses ISSN 0280–5316 Number: TFRT-3270
id
f5db2a2e-a784-4c8f-8ca6-1135bed10104
date added to LUP
2016-05-31 01:39:00
date last changed
2021-05-31 09:23:26
@misc{f5db2a2e-a784-4c8f-8ca6-1135bed10104,
  abstract     = {{This thesis addresses challenges in increasing the robustness of cloud-deployed applications and services to unexpected events and dynamic workloads. Without precautions, hardware failures and unpredictable large traffic variations can quickly degrade the performance of an application due to mismatch between provisioned resources and capacity needs. Similarly, disasters, such as power outages and fire, are unexpected events on larger scale that threatens the integrity of the underlying infrastructure on which an application is deployed.<br/><br/>First, the self-adaptive software concept of brownout is extended to replicated cloud applications. By monitoring the performance of each application replica, brownout is able to counteract temporary overload situations by reducing the computational complexity of jobs entering the system. To avoid existing load balancers interfering with the brownout functionality, brownout-aware load balancers are introduced. Simulation experiments show that the proposed load balancers outperform existing load balancers in providing a high quality of service to as many end users as possible. Experiments in a testbed environment further show how a replicated brownout-enabled application is able to maintain high performance during overloads as compared to its non-brownout equivalent.<br/><br/>Next, a feedback controller for cloud autoscaling is introduced. Using a novel way of modeling the dynamics of typical cloud application, a mechanism similar to the classical Smith predictor to compensate for delays in reconfiguring resource provisioning is presented. Simulation experiments show that the feedback controller is able to achieve faster control of the response times of a cloud application as compared to a threshold-based controller.<br/><br/>Finally, a solution for handling the trade-off between performance and disaster tolerance for geo-replicated cloud applications is introduced. An automated mechanism for differentiating application traffic and replication traffic, and dynamically managing their bandwidth allocations using an MPC controller is presented and evaluated in simulation. Comparisons with commonly used static approaches reveal that the proposed solution in overload situations provides increased flexibility in managing the trade-off between performance and data consistency.}},
  author       = {{Dürango, Jonas}},
  issn         = {{0280-5316}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  note         = {{Licentiate Thesis}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Automatic Control, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Research Reports TFRT-3270}},
  title        = {{Control Strategies for Improving Cloud Service Robustness}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/8089028/thesis_durango.pdf}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}