@article {Longo201737, title = {An approach for resiliency quantification of large scale systems}, journal = {Performance Evaluation Review}, volume = {44}, number = {4}, year = {2017}, note = {cited By 0}, pages = {37-48}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, abstract = {

We quantify the resiliency of large scale systems upon changes encountered beyond the normal system behavior. Formal definitions for resiliency and change are provided together with general steps for resiliency quantification and a set of resiliency metrics that can be used to quantify the effects of changes. A formalization of the approach is also shown in the form of a set of four algorithms that can be applied when large scale systems are modeled through stochastic analytic state space models (monolithic models or interacting sub-models). In particular, in the case of interacting submodels, since resiliency quantification involves understanding the transient behavior of the system, fixed-point variables evolve with time leading to non-homogenous Markov chains. At the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper facing this problem in a general way. The proposed approach is applied to an Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IaaS) Cloud use case. Specifically, we assess the impact of changes in demand and available capacity on the Cloud resiliency and we show that the approach proposed in this paper can scale for a real sized Cloud without significantly compromising the accuracy.

}, keywords = {Available capacity, Chains, Formal definition, Homogenous Markov chain, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Large scale systems, Markov processes, Non-homogeneous, Resiliency quantification, State - space models, State space methods, Stochastic models, Stochastic systems, Submodels, Transient behavior}, issn = {01635999}, doi = {10.1145/3092819.3092825}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85019853222\&doi=10.1145\%2f3092819.3092825\&partnerID=40\&md5=6266fffb7aad937fefad706e31fcd7da}, author = {Francesco Longo and Rahul Ghosh and Vijay K. Naik and A.J. Rindos and Kishor Trivedi} } @article {Ghosh2014667, title = {Stochastic model driven capacity planning for an infrastructure-as-a-service cloud}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Services Computing - IEEE Computer Society}, volume = {7}, number = {4}, year = {2014}, note = {cited By 1}, pages = {667-680}, publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}, abstract = {

From an enterprise perspective, one key motivation to transform the traditional IT management into Cloud is the cost reduction of the hosted services. In an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud, virtual machine (VM) instances share the physical machines (PMs) in the provider{\textquoteright}s data center. With large number of PMs, providers can maintain low cost of service downtime at the expense of higher infrastructure and other operational costs (e.g., power consumption and cooling costs). Hence, determining the optimal PM capacity requirements that minimize the overall cost is of interest. In this paper, we show how a cost analysis and optimization framework can be developed using stochastic availability and performance models of an IaaS Cloud. Specifically, we study two cost minimization problems to address the capacity planning in an IaaS Cloud: 1) what is the optimal number of PMs that minimizes the total cost of ownership for a given downtime requirement set by service level agreements? and, 2) is it more economical to use cheaper but less reliable PMs or to use costlier but more reliable PMs for insuring the same availability characteristics? We use simulated annealing, a well-known stochastic search algorithm, to solve these optimization problems. Results from our analysis show that the optimal solutions are found within reasonable time. {\textcopyright} 2013 IEEE.

}, keywords = {Capacity planning, Capacity requirement, Clouds, Cost benefit analysis, Cost reduction, Downtime, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Maintenance, Optimization, Optimization framework, Optimization problems, Service Level Agreements, Simulated annealing, Stochastic models, Stochastic search algorithms, Stochastic systems, Total cost of ownership}, issn = {19391374}, doi = {10.1109/TSC.2013.44}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84919717849\&partnerID=40\&md5=34c70f14a9a3f838562335050a628985}, author = {Rahul Ghosh and Francesco Longo and Ruofan Xia and Vijay K. Naik and Kishor S. Trivedi} } @article {Ghosh20131216, title = {Modeling and performance analysis of large scale IaaS clouds}, journal = {Future Generation Computer Systems - Elsevier}, volume = {29}, number = {5}, year = {2013}, note = {cited By 10}, pages = {1216-1234}, abstract = {

For Cloud based services to support enterprise class production workloads, Mainframe like predictable performance is essential. However, the scale, complexity, and inherent resource sharing across workloads make the Cloud management for predictable performance difficult. As a first step towards designing Cloud based systems that achieve such performance and realize the service level objectives, we develop a scalable stochastic analytic model for performance quantification of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud. Specifically, we model a class of IaaS Clouds that offer tiered services by configuring physical machines into three pools with different provisioning delay and power consumption characteristics. Performance behaviors in such IaaS Clouds are affected by a large set of parameters, e.g., workload, system characteristics and management policies. Thus, traditional analytic models for such systems tend to be intractable. To overcome this difficulty, we propose a multi-level interacting stochastic sub-models approach where the overall model solution is obtained iteratively over individual sub-model solutions. By comparing with a single-level monolithic model, we show that our approach is scalable, tractable, and yet retains high fidelity. Since the dependencies among the sub-models are resolved via fixed-point iteration, we prove the existence of a solution. Results from our analysis show the impact of workload and system characteristics on two performance measures: mean response delay and job rejection probability. {\textcopyright} 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

}, keywords = {Analytic modeling, Analytical models, Clouds, CTMC, Fixed-point iterations, IaaS, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Performance, Provisioning, Stochastic models, Stochastic systems, Submodels}, issn = {0167739X}, doi = {10.1016/j.future.2012.06.005}, url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84887062784\&partnerID=40\&md5=5aa7bb3aa9d27ba52b585a03501c8e18}, author = {Rahul Ghosh and Francesco Longo and Vijay K. Naik and Kishor S. Trivedi} }