An analysis of software aging in cloud environment

Abstract

Cloud computing is the environment in which several virtual machines (VM) run concurrently on physical machines. The cloud computing infrastructure hosts multiple cloud services that communicate with each other using the interfaces. During operation, the software systems accumulate errors or garbage that leads to system failure and other hazardous consequences. This status is called software aging. Software aging happens because of memory fragmentation, resource consumption in large scale and accumulation of numerical error. Software aging degrads the performance that may result in system failure. This happens because of premature resource exhaustion. The errors that cause software agings are of special types and target the response time and its environment. This issue is to be resolved only during run time as it occurs because of the dynamic nature of the problem. To alleviate the impact of software aging, software rejuvenation technique is being used. Rejuvenation process reboots the system or reinitiates the softwares. Software rejuvenation removes accumulated error conditions, frees up deadlocks and defragments operating system resources like memory. Software aging and rejuvenation has generated a lot of research interest recently. This work reviews some of the research works related to detection of software aging and identifies research gaps.