Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Science

Program

Computer Science

Supervisor

Hanan Lutfiyya

Abstract

Applications are shifting into large scale, virtualized data centres that provide resources on a pay-per-usage basis. With power consumption representing a major operational cost, data centres must prioritize efficiency while still providing enough resources to meet application requirements. To meet variable application demands, a dynamic approach to virtual machine (VM) management is required. This requires: (i) placing newly arrived VMs, (ii) migrating VMs from highly utilized machines to avoid performance degradation, and (iii) migrating VMs from underutilized machines so that they may be deactivated to save power. Here, a management strategy is considered to be policy-set that guides these three operations. To achieve the conflicting goals of performance and efficiency, I propose and evaluate a system of dynamically switching between two management strategies, each with a single goal, based on trends in data centre workload. Experimentation over a simulated data centre demonstrates the superiority of this approach over single-strategy techniques.

Share

COinS