Chapter 6 Cloud Resource

Management and Scheduling

Contents

Resource management and scheduling.

Policies and mechanisms.
Applications of control theory to cloud resource allocation.
Stability of a two-level resource allocation architecture.
Proportional thresholding.
Coordinating power and performance management.
A utility-based model for cloud-based Web services.
Resource bundling and combinatorial auctions.
Scheduling algorithms.
Fair queuing.
Start-up fair queuing.
Borrowed virtual time.
Cloud scheduling subject to deadlines.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice. Chapter 6

Resource management and scheduling

Critical function of any man-made system.

It affects the three basic criteria for the evaluation of a system:

Functionality.
Performance.
Cost.

Scheduling in a computing system deciding how to allocate

resources of a system, such as CPU cycles, memory, secondary
storage space, I/O and network bandwidth, between users and
tasks.
Policies and mechanisms for resource allocation.

Policy principles guiding decisions.

Mechanisms the means to implement policies.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Motivation

Cloud resource management .

Requires complex policies and decisions for multi-objective

optimization.
It is challenging - the complexity of the system makes it impossible to
have accurate global state information.
Affected by unpredictable interactions with the environment, e.g.,
system failures, attacks.
Cloud service providers are faced with large fluctuating loads which
challenge the claim of cloud elasticity.

The strategies for resource management for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
are different.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Cloud resource management (CRM) policies

1.

Admission control prevent the system from accepting workload

in violation of high-level system policies.

2.

Capacity allocation allocate resources for individual activations

of a service.

3.

Load balancing distribute the workload evenly among the

servers.

4.

Energy optimization minimization of energy consumption.

5.

Quality of service (QoS) guarantees ability to satisfy timing or

other conditions specified by a Service Level Agreement.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Mechanisms for the implementation of resource

management policies

Control theory uses the feedback to guarantee system stability

and predict transient behavior.

Machine learning does not need a performance model of the

system.

Utility-based require a performance model and a mechanism to

correlate user-level performance with cost.

Market-oriented/economic do not require a model of the system,

e.g., combinatorial auctions for bundles of resources.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Tradeoffs

To reduce cost and save energy we may need to concentrate the

load on fewer servers rather than balance the load among them.
We may also need to operate at a lower clock rate; the
performance decreases at a lower rate than does the energy.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Control theory application to cloud resource

management (CRM)

The main components of a control system:

The inputs the offered workload and the policies for admission
control, the capacity allocation, the load balancing, the energy
optimization, and the QoS guarantees in the cloud.

The control system components sensors used to estimate relevant

measures of performance and controllers which implement various
policies.

The outputs the resource allocations to the individual applications.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

Feedback and Stability

Control granularity the level of detail of the information used to

control the system.

Fine control very detailed information about the parameters

controlling the system state is used.
Coarse control the accuracy of these parameters is traded for the
efficiency of implementation.

The controllers use the feedback provided by sensors to stabilize

the system. Stability is related to the change of the output.
Sources of instability in any control system:

The delay in getting the system reaction after a control action.

The granularity of the control, the fact that a small change enacted by
the controllers leads to very large changes of the output.
Oscillations, when the changes of the input are too large and the
control is too weak, such that the changes of the input propagate
directly to the output.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

The structure of a cloud controller

disturbance
r

external
traffic

Predictive
filter

forecast

Optimal
controller

(k )

s
u* (k)

Queuing
dynamics

(k )

state feedback q(k)

The controller uses the feedback regarding the current state and the estimation
of the future disturbance due to environment to compute the optimal inputs over
a finite horizon. r and s are the weighting factors of the performance index.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

10

Two-level cloud controller

Application n

Application 1
Application 1

SLA 1

Application
controller

.
.

SLA n

Application n

Application
controller

VM

VM

Monitor
Decision

Cloud Controller

Actuator

VM

VM

Monitor

Decision
Actuator

Cloud Platform

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

11

Lessons from the two-level experiment

The actions of the control system should be carried out in a rhythm

that does not lead to instability.
Adjustments should only be carried out after the performance of the
system has stabilized.
If upper and a lower thresholds are set, then instability occurs when
they are too close to one another if the variations of the workload
are large enough and the time required to adapt does not allow the
system to stabilize.
The actions consist of allocation/deallocation of one or more virtual
machines. Sometimes allocation/dealocation of a single VM
required by one of the threshold may cause crossing of the other,
another source of instability.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

12

Control theory application to CRM

Regulate the key operating parameters of the system based on

measurement of the system output.
The feedback control assumes a linear time-invariant system
model, and a closed-loop controller.
The system transfer function satisfies stability and sensitivity
constraints.
A threshold the value of a parameter related to the state of a
system that triggers a change in the system behavior.
Thresholds used to keep critical parameters of a system in a
predefined range.
Two types of policies:
threshold-based upper and lower bounds on performance trigger
adaptation through resource reallocation; such policies are simple and
intuitive but require setting per-application thresholds.
2. sequential decision based on Markovian decision models.
1.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

13

Design decisions

Is it beneficial to have two types of controllers:

application controllers determine if additional resources are needed.
cloud controllers arbitrate requests for resources and allocates the
physical resources.

Choose fine versus coarse control.

Dynamic thresholds based on time averages better versus static

ones.

Use a high and a low threshold versus a high threshold only.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

14

Proportional thresholding

Algorithm

Compute the integral value of the high and the low threshold as
averages of the maximum and, respectively, the minimum of the
processor utilization over the process history.
Request additional VMs when the average value of the CPU utilization
over the current time slice exceeds the high threshold.
Release a VM when the average value of the CPU utilization over the
current time slice falls below the low threshold.

Conclusions

Dynamic thresholds perform better than the static ones.

Two thresholds are better than one.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

15

Coordinating power and performance management

Use separate controllers/managers for the two objectives.

Identify a minimal set of parameters to be exchanged between the
two managers.
Use a joint utility function for power and performance.
Set up a power cap for individual systems based on the utilityoptimized power management policy.
Use a standard performance manager modified only to accept
input from the power manager regarding the frequency determined
according to the power management policy.
Use standard software systems.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

16

Communication between
autonomous managers

Performance manager

Control policy

Power manager
Control policy

Power
data

Performance
data
Blade
Blade

Workload
generator

Workload
distribution

Blade

Power
assignment

Power

Blade

Blade

Autonomous performance and power managers cooperate to

ensure prescribed performance and energy optimization; they
are fed with performance and power data and implement the
performance and power management policies
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

17

A utility-based model for cloud-based web services

A service level agreement (SLA) specifies the rewards as well

as penalties associated with specific performance metrics.
The SLA for cloud-based web services uses the average response
time to reflect the Quality of Service.
We assume a cloud providing K different classes of service, each
class k involving Nk applications.
The system is modeled as a network of queues with multi-queues
for each server.
A delay center models the think time of the user after the
completion of service at one server and the start of processing at
the next server.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

18

Utility function U(R)

P
e
n
a
t
l
t
y

R
e
w
a
r
d

R0

R1

R2

R - response time

The utility function U(R) is a series of step functions with jumps

corresponding to the response time, R=R0 | R1 | R2, when the
reward and the penalty levels change according to the SLA. The
dotted line shows a quadratic approximation of the utility function.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

19

Si2

Si3
Si1

Si6

Si4

vk
vkmax

Si5

rkmax

rk

(b)

(a)

(a) The utility function: vk the revenue (or the penalty)

function of the response time rk for a request of class k.
(b) A network of multiqueues.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

20

The model requires a large number of parameters

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

21

Resource bundling

Resources in a cloud are allocated in bundles.

Users get maximum benefit from a specific combination of resources:

CPU cycles, main memory, disk space, network bandwidth, and so on.

Resource bundling complicates traditional resource allocation models

and has generated an interest in economic models and, in particular,
in auction algorithms.

The bidding process aims to optimize an objective function f(x,p).

In the context of cloud computing, an auction is the allocation of

resources to the highest bidder.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

22

Combinatorial auctions for cloud resources

Users provide bids for desirable bundles and the price they are
willing to pay.

Prices and allocation are set as a result of an auction.

Ascending Clock Auction, (ASCA) the current price for each

resource is represented by a clock seen by all participants at the
auction.

The algorithm involves user bidding in multiple rounds; to address

this problem the user proxies automatically adjust their demands on
behalf of the actual bidders.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

23

u1

Proxy

x1(t)

u2

Proxy

x2(t)

u3

Proxy

x3(t)

Auctioneer

(t ) 0

uU

Proxy

xU(t)

p(t+1)

The schematics of the ASCA algorithm; to allow for a single round auction
users are represented by proxies which place the bids xu(t). The auctioneer
determines if there is an excess demand and, in that case, it raises the price of
resources for which the demand exceeds the supply and requests new bids.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

24

Pricing and allocation algorithms

A pricing and allocation algorithm partitions the set of users in two

disjoint sets, winners and losers.
Desirable properties of a pricing algorithm:

Be computationally tractable; traditional combinatorial auction algorithms

e.g., Vickey-Clarke-Groves (VLG) are not computationally tractable.
Scale well - given the scale of the system and the number of requests
for service, scalability is a necessary condition.
Be objective - partitioning in winners and losers should only be based on
the price of a user's bid; if the price exceeds the threshold then the user
is a winner, otherwise the user is a loser.
Be fair - make sure that the prices are uniform, all winners within a
given resource pool pay the same price.
Indicate clearly at the end of the auction the unit prices for each
resource pool.
Indicate clearly to all participants the relationship between the supply
and the demand in the system.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

25

Cloud scheduling algorithms

Scheduling responsible for resource sharing at several levels:

A server can be shared among several virtual machines.

A virtual machine could support several applications.
An application may consist of multiple threads.

A scheduling algorithm should be efficient, fair, and starvation-free.

The objectives of a scheduler:

Batch system maximize throughput and minimize turnaround time.

Real-time system meet the deadlines and be predictable.

Best-effort: batch applications and analytics.

Common algorithms for best effort applications:

Round-robin.
First-Come-First-Serve (FCFS).
Shortest-Job-First (SJF).
Priority algorithms.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

26

Cloud scheduling algorithms (contd)

Multimedia applications (e.g., audio and video streaming)

Have soft real-time constraints.

Require statistically guaranteed maximum delay and throughput.

Real-time applications have hard real-time constraints.

Scheduling algorithms for real-time applications:

Earliest Deadline First (EDF).

Rate Monotonic Algorithms (RMA).

Algorithms for integrated scheduling of several classes of

applications:

Resource Allocation/Dispatching (RAD) .

Rate-Based Earliest Deadline (RBED).

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

27

Quantity
Hard real-time
strict
Hard-requirements

Soft-requirements

Best-effort

Timing

loose
loose

strict

Best-effort policies do not impose requirements regarding either the amount of

resources allocated to an application, or the timing when an application is scheduled.
Soft-requirements policies require statistically guaranteed amounts and
timing constraints
Hard-requirements policies demand strict timing and precise amounts of resources.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

28

Fair queuing - schedule multiple flows through a switch

R(t)

R(t)

Fai(tai)=Sai(tai)+Pai

Fai(tai)=Sai(tai)+Pai

Sai(tai)=Rai(tai)

Sai(tai)=Fai-1(tai-1)

Fai-1(tai-1)

Rai(tai)

tai-1

tai
(a)

tai-1

tai
(b)

The transmission of packet i of a flow can only start after the packet is
available and the transmission of the previous packet has finished.
(a) The new packet arrives after the previous has finished.
(b) The new packet arrives before the previous one was finished.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

29

Start-time fair queuing

Organize the consumers of the CPU bandwidth in a tree structure.

The root node is the processor and the leaves of this tree are the
threads of each application.

When a virtual machine is not active, its bandwidth is reallocated to the

other VMs active at the time.
When one of the applications of a virtual machine is not active, its
allocation is transferred to the other applications running on the same VM.
If one of the threads of an application is not runnable then its allocation is
transferred to the other threads of the applications.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

30

Server

VM2
(3)

VM1
(1)

A2
(1)

A1
(3)

t1,1
(1)

t1,2
(1)

t1,3
(1)

t2
(1)

A3
(1)

vs1
(1)

vs2
(1)

vs3
(1)

The SFQ tree for scheduling when two virtual machines VM1 and VM2 run
on a powerful server
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

31

Borrowed virtual time (BVT)

Objective - support low-latency dispatching of real-time applications,

and weighted sharing of CPU among several classes of applications.
A thread i has

an effective virtual time, Ei.

an actual virtual time, Ai.
a virtual time warp, Wi.

The scheduler thread maintains its own scheduler virtual time (SVT)
defined as the minimum actual virtual time of any thread.
The threads are dispatched in the order of their effective virtual time,
policy called the Earliest Virtual Time (EVT).

Context switches are triggered by events such as:

the running thread is blocked waiting for an event to occur.

the time quantum expires.
an interrupt occurs.
when a thread becomes runnable after sleeping.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

32

Thread a
0

12

24

36

t
12

24

36

thread b is suspended

48

thread b is reactivated

Thread b
0

12

12

15

Virtual time

36
24
12

Real time

15

18

21

24

36

48

60

Top the virtual startup time and the virtual finish time and function of the real time t
for each activation of threads a and b.
Bottom the virtual time of the scheduler v(t) function of the real time
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

33

Effective virtual time

450

390

360

300

270

210

180

120

90

30

Real time (mcu)

2

11

14

20

18

23

29

32

27

38

36

41

45

The effective virtual time and the real time of the threads a
(solid line) and b (dotted line) with weights wa = 2 wb when
the actual virtual time is incremented in steps of 90 mcu.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

34

Effective virtual time

450

390

360

300

270

210

180

120

90

30

Real time (mcu)

2

12

14

21

18

23

30

27

32

36

39

41

45

-60

The effective virtual time and the real time of the threads a (solid line), b (dotted line),
and the c with real-time constraints (thick solid line). Thread c wakes up periodically at
times t=9, 18, 27, 36,, is active for 3 units of time and has a time warp of 60 mcu.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

35

Cloud scheduling subject to deadlines

Hard deadlines if the task is not completed by the deadline, other

tasks which depend on it may be affected and there are penalties; a
hard deadline is strict and expressed precisely as milliseconds, or
possibly seconds.

Soft deadlines more of a guideline and, in general, there are no

penalties; soft deadlines can be missed by fractions of the units
used to express them, e.g., minutes if the deadline is expressed in
hours, or hours if the deadlines is expressed in days.

We consider only aperiodic tasks with arbitrarily divisible workloads.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

36

Workload partition rules

Optimal Partitioning Rule (OPR) the workload is partitioned to

ensure the earliest possible completion time and all tasks are
required to complete at the same time.

Equal Partitioning Rule (EPR) assigns an equal workload to

individual worker nodes.

Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

37

S0

S1

S2

S3

Sn

The timing diagram for the Optimal Partitioning Rule; the algorithm requires
worker nodes to complete execution at the same time. The head node, S0,
distributes sequentially the data to individual worker nodes.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

38

S0

S1
S2
S3

1
2
3

Sn

The timing diagram for the Equal Partitioning Rule; the algorithm assigns an equal
workload to individual worker nodes.
Dan C. Marinescu

Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice.

Chapter 6

39