Policy-Based Cloud Management Through Resource Usage Prediction

Cloud computing services are becoming increasingly more widespread, mainly because they offer a convenient way of using remote computational resources at any time. Constantly satisfying client needs is a difficult task due to the limited nature of the physical resources. Careful handling of computing capabilities is critical. Cloud systems offer resource elasticity, which is essential for respecting Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or other types of contracts. This paper proposes a novel solution which offers an efficient resource management mechanism for Clouds. The solution is based on monitoring hosts belonging to the Cloud in order to obtain load data. A policy-based system uses the monitoring information to make decisions about deployment of new virtual machines and migration of already running machines from overloaded hosts. The policy-based solution is enhanced by prediction algorithms to optimize the resource usage and to make sure that the available hosts are capable of handling the increased load before it happens. This leads to more efficient resource usage and can help fulfill the SLA requirements even under heavy loads.