Resource provisioning for cloud computing

In resource provisioning for cloud computing, an important issue is how resources may be allocated to an application mix such that the service level agreements (SLAs) of all applications are met. A performance model with two interactive job classes is used to determine the smallest number of servers required to meet the SLAs of both classes. For each class, the SLA is specified by the relationship: Prob response time ≤ x ≥ y. Two server allocation strategies are considered: shared allocation (SA) and dedicated allocation (DA). For the case of FCFS scheduling, analytic results for response time distribution are used to develop a heuristic algorithm that determines an allocation strategy (SA or DA) that requires the smallest number of servers. The effectiveness of this algorithm is evaluated over a range of operating conditions. The performance of SA with non-FCFS scheduling is also investigated. Among the scheduling disciplines considered, a new discipline called probability dependent priority is found to have the best performance in terms of requiring the smallest number of servers.