Modeling and performance analysis to predict the behavior of a divisible load application in a cloud computing environment

Abstract

Cloud computing is an emerging technology where IT resources are virtualized to users as a set of a unified computing resources on a pay per use basis. The resources are dynamically chosen to satisfy a user Service Level Agreement and a required level of performance. Divisible load applications occur in many scientific and engineering applications and can easily be mapped to a Cloud using a master-worker pattern. However, those applications pose challenges to obtain the required performance. We model divisible load applications tasks processing on a set of cloud resources. We derive a novel model and formulas for computing the blocking probability in the system. The formulas are useful to analyze and predict the behavior of a divisible load application on a chosen set of resources to satisfy a Service Level Agreement before the implementation phase, thus saving time and platform energy. They are also useful as a dynamic feedback to a cloud scheduler for optimal scheduling. We evaluate the model in a set of illustrative scenarios. © 2012 by the authors.