Algorithms for automated live migration of virtual machines

Abstract

We present two strategies to balance the load in a system with multiple virtual machines (VMs) through automated live migration. When the push strategy is used, overloaded hosts try to migrate workload to less loaded nodes. On the other hand, when the pull strategy is employed, the light-loaded hosts take the initiative to offload overloaded nodes.The performance of the proposed strategies was evaluated through simulations. We have discovered that the strategies complement each other, in the sense that each strategy comes out as "best" under different types of workload. For example, the pull strategy is able to quickly re-distribute the load of the system when the load is in the range low-to-medium, while the push strategy is faster when the load is medium-to-high.Our evaluation shows that when adding or removing a large number of virtual machines in the system, the "best" strategy can re-balance the system in 4-15 minutes.

Affinity based VM Migration: Taxonomy and Challenges

“…VM migration also helps in workload balancing across all the virtual machines so that the over usage or under usage of the machines can be avoided. Workload balancing fairly distributes the load among all the machines and supports to avoid any circumstances of uneven load balancing; some machines are working at full load and other machines stay unused [6]. VM migration mechanism can be classified as follows:…”

“…Using Virtualization many VMs can run simultaneously on the same Host [5]. A virtual machine can experience a dynamic workload and hence, resources can be over-utilized (hot spot) or underutilized (cold spot) [6]. The process of VM migration is important in cloud environment for dynamic resource management [7].…”

A multi-objective optimization model for virtual machine mapping in cloud data centres

“…The VM typically hosts a guest OS. By running multiple VMs simultaneously on a PM, the hardware can be used more efficiently [4].…”

“…Live migration reduces the downtime dramatically for applications executing inside the VM. It is highly valuable if the migrations can be performed automatically, without the involvement of a human operator [4]. There are also several VM live migration techniques that consider power consumption reduction as well as downtime and migration time.…”

“…Load-balanced systems are desirable for several reasons, such as to avoid large discrepancies between the level of service afforded to various VMs from the same service class and to keep an even ambient temperature to reduce cooling cost. Live migration enables hot spot mitigation and server consolidation with minimal disturbance to applications running inside the migrating VMs [4]. However, an improper migration can result to the VMs being executed on unsuitable hosts, which can then lead to unwarranted effects.…”