Real-Time Virtual Network Function (VNF) Migration toward Low Network Latency in Cloud Environments

in IEEE 10th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2017 (2017, June)

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging network architecture to increase flexibility and agility within operator's networks by placing virtualized services on demand in Cloud data centers ... [more ▼]

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging network architecture to increase flexibility and agility within operator's networks by placing virtualized services on demand in Cloud data centers (CDCs). One of the main challenges for the NFV environment is how to minimize network latency in the rapidly changing network environments. Although many researchers have already studied in the field of Virtual Machine (VM) migration and Virtual Network Function (VNF) placement for efficient resource management in CDCs, VNF migration problem for low network latency among VNFs has not been studied yet to the best of our knowledge. To address this issue in this article, we i) formulate the VNF migration problem and ii) develop a novel VNF migration algorithm called VNF Real-time Migration (VNF-RM) for lower network latency in dynamically changing resource availability. As a result of experiments, the effectiveness of our algorithm is demonstrated by reducing network latency by up to 70.90% after latency-aware VNF migrations. [less ▲]

CA-DAG: Modeling Communication-Aware Applications for Scheduling in Cloud Computing

in Journal of Grid Computing (2016), 14(1), 23-39

This paper addresses performance issues of resource allocation in cloud computing. We review requirements of different cloud applications and identify the need of considering communication processes ... [more ▼]

This paper addresses performance issues of resource allocation in cloud computing. We review requirements of different cloud applications and identify the need of considering communication processes explicitly and equally to the computing tasks. Following this observation, we propose a new communication-aware model of cloud computing applications, called CA-DAG. This model is based on Directed Acyclic Graphs that in addition to computing vertices include separate vertices to represent communications. Such a representation allows making separate resource allocation decisions: assigning processors to handle computing jobs, and network resources for information transmissions. The proposed CA-DAG model creates space for optimization of a number of existing solutions to resource allocation and for developing novel scheduling schemes of improved efficiency. [less ▲]

Energy-efficient Data Replication in Cloud Computing Datacenters

in Cluster Computing (2015), 18(1), 385-402

Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm that provides computing, communication and storage resources as a service over a network. Communication resources often become a bottleneck in service provisioning ... [more ▼]

Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm that provides computing, communication and storage resources as a service over a network. Communication resources often become a bottleneck in service provisioning for many cloud applications. Therefore, data replication which brings data (e.g., databases) closer to data consumers (e.g., cloud applications) is seen as a promising solution. It allows minimizing network delays and bandwidth usage. In this paper we study data replication in cloud computing data centers. Unlike other approaches available in the literature, we consider both energy efficiency and bandwidth consumption of the system. This is in addition to the improved quality of service QoS obtained as a result of the reduced communication delays. The evaluation results, obtained from both mathematical model and extensive simulations, help to unveil performance and energy efficiency tradeoffs as well as guide the design of future data replication solutions. [less ▲]

Performance and Energy Efficiency Metrics for Communication Systems of Cloud Computing Data Centers

in IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (2015)

Cloud computing has become a de facto approach for service provisioning over the Internet. It operates relying on a pool of shared computing resources available on demand and usually hosted in data ... [more ▼]

Cloud computing has become a de facto approach for service provisioning over the Internet. It operates relying on a pool of shared computing resources available on demand and usually hosted in data centers. Assessing performance and energy efficiency of data centers becomes fundamental. Industries use a number of metrics to assess efficiency and energy consumption of cloud computing systems, focusing mainly on the efficiency of IT equipment, cooling and power distribution systems. However, none of the existing metrics is precise enough to distinguish and analyze the performance of data center communication systems from IT equipment. This paper proposes a framework of new metrics able to assess performance and energy efficiency of cloud computing communication systems, processes and protocols. The proposed metrics have been evaluated for the most common data center architectures including fat tree three-tier, BCube, DCell and Hypercube. [less ▲]

Network-Assisted Offloading for Mobile Cloud Applications

in IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), London, UK, 2015 (2015)

Data traffic from mobile devices experiences unprecedented growth that current cellular network capacities cannot sustain. Traffic offloading to other type of networks such as WiFi emerged as a valid ... [more ▼]

Data traffic from mobile devices experiences unprecedented growth that current cellular network capacities cannot sustain. Traffic offloading to other type of networks such as WiFi emerged as a valid solution to relieve the load in cellular networks. In this paper, we propose novel solution, which unlike other existing methodologies uses information provided by the cellular network to optimize traffic offloading. The provided information includes channel usage statistics, user mobility patterns, information about available resources and other parameters. The offloading decisions aim at optimizing the balance between user and application requirements with availability of network resources. We validated the effectiveness of the proposed solution through simulations with NS-3 network simulator. The results show the capability of the solution in relieving cellular load while guaranteeing user QoS. [less ▲]

A survey on resource allocation in high performance distributed computing systems

in Parallel Computing (2013), 39(11), 709-736

An efficient resource allocation is a fundamental requirement in high performance computing (HPC) systems. Many projects are dedicated to large-scale distributed computing systems that have designed and ... [more ▼]

An efficient resource allocation is a fundamental requirement in high performance computing (HPC) systems. Many projects are dedicated to large-scale distributed computing systems that have designed and developed resource allocation mechanisms with a variety of architectures and services. In our study, through analysis, a comprehensive survey for describing resource allocation in various HPCs is reported. The aim of the work is to aggregate under a joint framework, the existing solutions for HPC to provide a thorough analysis and characteristics of the resource management and allocation strategies. Resource allocation mechanisms and strategies play a vital role towards the performance improvement of all the HPCs classifications. Therefore, a comprehensive discussion of widely used resource allocation strategies deployed in HPC environment is required, which is one of the motivations of this survey. Moreover, we have classified the HPC systems into three broad categories, namely: (a) cluster, (b) grid, and (c) cloud systems and define the characteristics of each class by extracting sets of common attributes. All of the aforementioned systems are cataloged into pure software and hybrid/hardware solutions. The system classification is used to identify approaches followed by the implementation of existing resource allocation strategies that are widely presented in the literature. [less ▲]

Impact of Voltage Levels Number for Energy-aware Bi-objective DAG Scheduling for Multi-processors Systems

in Advances in Information Technology: 5th International Conference, IAIT 2012, Bangkok, Thailand, December 6-7, 2012, Proceedings (2012)

A New Genetic Algorithm for Scheduling for Large Communication Delays

in 15th International Euro-Par Conference (2009, August 28)

In modern parallel and distributed systems, the time for exchanging data is usually larger than that for computing elementary operations. Consequently, these communications slow down the execution of the ... [more ▼]

In modern parallel and distributed systems, the time for exchanging data is usually larger than that for computing elementary operations. Consequently, these communications slow down the execution of the application scheduled on such systems. Accounting for these communications is essential for attaining efficient hardware and software utilization. Therefore, we provide in this paper a new combined approach for scheduling parallel applications with large communication delays on an arbitrary number of processors. In this approach, a genetic algorithm is improved with the introduction of some extra knowledge about the scheduling problem. This knowledge is represented by a class of clustering algorithms introduced recently, namely, convex clusters which are based on structural properties of the parallel applications. The developed algorithm is assessed by simulations run on some families of synthetic task graphs and randomly generated applications. The comparison with related approaches emphasizes its interest. [less ▲]