Cost minimization in utility computing systems

Abstract

Utility computing is a form of computer service whereby the company providing the service charges the users for using the system resources. In this paper, we present system-optimal and user-optimal price-based job allocation schemes for utility computing systems whose objective is to minimize the cost for the users. The system-optimal scheme provides an allocation of jobs to the computing resources that minimizes the overall cost for executing all the jobs in the system. The user-optimal scheme provides an allocation that minimizes the cost for individual users in the system for providing fairness. The system-optimal scheme is formulated as a constraint minimization problem, and the user-optimal scheme is formulated as a noncooperative game. The prices charged by the computing resource owners for executing the users jobs are obtained using a pricing model based on a non-cooperative bargaining game theory framework. The performance of the studied job allocation schemes is evaluated using simulations with various system loads and configurations.The software agents of the user and the resource owner play an incomplete information, alternatingoffer and non-cooperative bargaining game to obtain an agreed price-per-unit-resource. Contribution and related workIn this paper, we present system-optimal and user-optimal price-based job allocation schemes for utility computing systems whose objective is to minimize the cost (or price) for the users. The price-based global-optimal (system-optimal) scheme (GOSP) provides an allocation of jobs to the computing resources that minimizes the overall cost for executing all the jobs in the system. The price-based user-optimal scheme (NASHP) provides an allocation that minimizes the cost for individual users in the system. The system-optimal scheme is formulated as a constraint minimization problem, and the user-optimal scheme is formulated as a non-cooperative game. The objective of NASHP is to provide fairness to all the users, that is, all the users should have to pay approximately the same price, independent of the computers allocated for the execution of their jobs (of approximately the same size). Fairness is very important in modern distributed systems such as the utility computing systems, grid computing systems, and cloud computing systems.Preliminary work on GOSP and NASHP can be found in [2]. In this paper, more experimental results are presented evaluating the performance of the proposed schemes. The proportional job allocation scheme (PROP) [3] is also implemented for comparison purposes. New results presented are the following: variation of expected price with system utilization for various price vectors based on the allocation of NASHP; effect of system utilization on the expected prices provided by GOSP, NASHP, and PROP; effect of system utilization on the fairness indices obtained by GOSP, NASHP, and PROP; variation of expected price with speed skewness for various price vectors based on the allocation of NASHP; effect of speed skewness on the expected prices provide...

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