Scheduling Problems

Scheduling is defined as the process of assigning operations to resources over time to optimize a criterion. Problems with scheduling comprise both a set of resources and a set of a consumers. As such, managing scheduling problems involves managing the use of resources by several consumers. This book presents some new applications and trends related to task and data scheduling. In particular, chapters focus on data science, big data, high-performance computing, and Cloud computing environments. In addition, this book presents novel algorithms and literature reviews that will guide current and new researchers who work with load balancing, scheduling, and allocation problems

Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm to Dynamic Energy Management in Cloud Data Center

With the wide deployment of cloud computing data centers, the problems of power consumption have become increasingly prominent. The dynamic energy management problem in pursuit of energy-efficiency in cloud data centers is investigated. Specifically, a dynamic energy management system model for cloud data centers is built, and this system is composed of DVS Management Module, Load Balancing Module, and Task Scheduling Module. According to Task Scheduling Module, the scheduling process is analyzed by Stochastic Petri Net, and a task-oriented resource allocation method (LET-ACO) is proposed, which optimizes the running time of the system and the energy consumption by scheduling tasks. Simulation studies confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system model. And the simulation results also show that, compared to ACO, Min-Min, and RR scheduling strategy, the proposed LET-ACO method can save up to 28%, 31%, and 40% energy consumption while meeting performance constraints

A Comprehensive Survey on Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm and Its Applications

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a heuristic global optimization method, proposed originally by Kennedy and Eberhart in 1995. It is now one of the most commonly used optimization techniques. This survey presented a comprehensive investigation of PSO. On one hand, we provided advances with PSO, including its modifications (including quantum-behaved PSO, bare-bones PSO, chaotic PSO, and fuzzy PSO), population topology (as fully connected, von Neumann, ring, star, random, etc.), hybridization (with genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, Tabu search, artificial immune system, ant colony algorithm, artificial bee colony, differential evolution, harmonic search, and biogeography-based optimization), extensions (to multiobjective, constrained, discrete, and binary optimization), theoretical analysis (parameter selection and tuning, and convergence analysis), and parallel implementation (in multicore, multiprocessor, GPU, and cloud computing forms). On the other hand, we offered a survey on applications of PSO to the following eight fields: electrical and electronic engineering, automation control systems, communication theory, operations research, mechanical engineering, fuel and energy, medicine, chemistry, and biology. It is hoped that this survey would be beneficial for the researchers studying PSO algorithms

Energy-efficient resource allocation scheme based on enhanced flower pollination algorithm for cloud computing data center

Cloud Computing (CC) has rapidly emerged as a successful paradigm for providing ICT infrastructure. Efficient and environmental-friendly resource allocation mechanisms, responsible for allocatinpg Cloud data center resources to execute user applications in the form of requests are undoubtedly required. One of the promising Nature-Inspired techniques for addressing virtualization, consolidation and energyaware problems is the Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA). However, FPA suffers from entrapment and its static control parameters cannot maintain a balance between local and global search which could also lead to high energy consumption and inadequate resource utilization. This research developed an enhanced FPA-based energy efficient resource allocation scheme for Cloud data center which provides efficient resource utilization and energy efficiency with less probable Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations. Firstly, an Enhanced Flower Pollination Algorithm for Energy-Efficient Virtual Machine Placement (EFPA-EEVMP) was developed. In this algorithm, a Dynamic Switching Probability (DSP) strategy was adopted to balance the local and global search space in FPA used to minimize the energy consumption and maximize resource utilization. Secondly, Multi-Objective Hybrid Flower Pollination Resource Consolidation (MOH-FPRC) algorithm was developed. In this algorithm, Local Neighborhood Search (LNS) and Pareto optimisation strategies were combined with Clustering algorithm to avoid local trapping and address Cloud service providers conflicting objectives such as energy consumption and SLA violation. Lastly, Energy-Aware Multi-Cloud Flower Pollination Optimization (EAM-FPO) scheme was developed for distributed Multi-Cloud data center environment. In this scheme, Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and migration controller were utilised to obtain the optimal solution in a larger search space of the CC environment. The scheme was tested on MultiRecCloudSim simulator. Results of the simulation were compared with OEMACS, ACS-VMC, and EA-DP. The scheme produced outstanding performance improvement rate on the data center energy consumption by 20.5%, resource utilization by 23.9%, and SLA violation by 13.5%. The combined algorithms have reduced entrapment and maintaned balance between local and global search. Therefore, based on the findings the developed scheme has proven to be efficient in minimizing energy consumption while at the same time improving the data center resource allocation with minimum SLA violation

To boldly go:an occam-π mission to engineer emergence

Future systems will be too complex to design and implement explicitly. Instead, we will have to learn to engineer complex behaviours indirectly: through the discovery and application of local rules of behaviour, applied to simple process components, from which desired behaviours predictably emerge through dynamic interactions between massive numbers of instances. This paper describes a process-oriented architecture for fine-grained concurrent systems that enables experiments with such indirect engineering. Examples are presented showing the differing complex behaviours that can arise from minor (non-linear) adjustments to low-level parameters, the difficulties in suppressing the emergence of unwanted (bad) behaviour, the unexpected relationships between apparently unrelated physical phenomena (shown up by their separate emergence from the same primordial process swamp) and the ability to explore and engineer completely new physics (such as force fields) by their emergence from low-level process interactions whose mechanisms can only be imagined, but not built, at the current time

Energy-efficient Nature-Inspired techniques in Cloud computing datacenters

Cloud computing is a systematic delivery of computing resources as services to the consumers via the Internet. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the capability provided to the consumer by enabling smarter access to the processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources, where the consumer can deploy and run arbitrary software including operating systems and applications. The resources are sometimes available in the form of Virtual Machines (VMs). Cloud services are provided to the consumers based on the demand, and are billed accordingly. Usually, the VMs run on various datacenters, which comprise of several computing resources consuming lots of energy resulting in hazardous level of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Several researchers have proposed various energy-efficient methods for reducing the energy consumption in datacenters. One such solutions are the Nature-Inspired algorithms. Towards this end, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art Nature-Inspired algorithms suggested for solving the energy issues in the Cloud datacenters. A taxonomy is followed focusing on three key dimension in the literature including virtualization, consolidation, and energy-awareness. A qualitative review of each techniques is carried out considering key goal, method, advantages, and limitations. The Nature-Inspired algorithms are compared based on their features to indicate their utilization of resources and their level of energy-efficiency. Finally, potential research directions are identified in energy optimization in data centers. This review enable the researchers and professionals in Cloud computing datacenters in understanding literature evolution towards to exploring better energy-efficient methods for Cloud computing datacenters

JOSTLE: multilevel graph partitioning software: an overview

In this chapter we look at JOSTLE, the multilevel graph-partitioning software package, and highlight some of the key research issues that it addresses. We first outline the core algorithms and place it in the context of the multilevel refinement paradigm. We then look at issues relating to its use as a tool for parallel processing and, in particular, partitioning in parallel. Since its first release in 1995, JOSTLE has been used for many mesh-based parallel scientific computing applications and so we also outline some enhancements such as multiphase mesh-partitioning, heterogeneous mapping and partitioning to optimise subdomain shap

Ant colony optimization algorithm for load balancing in grid computing

Managing resources in grid computing system is complicated due to the distributed and heterogeneous nature of the resources. This research proposes an enhancement of the ant colony optimization algorithm that caters for dynamic scheduling and load balancing in the grid computing system. The proposed algorithm is known as the enhance ant colony optimization (EACO). The algorithm consists of three new mechanisms that organize the work of an ant colony i.e. initial pheromone value mechanism, resource selection mechanism and pheromone update mechanism. The resource allocation problem is modelled as a graph that can be used by the ant to deliver its pheromone.This graph consists of four types of vertices which are job, requirement, resource and capacity that are used in constructing the grid resource management element. The proposed EACO algorithm takes into consideration the capacity of resources and the characteristics of jobs in determining the best resource to process a job. EACO selects the resources based on the pheromone value on each resource which is recorded in a matrix form. The initial pheromone value of each resource for each job is calculated based on the estimated transmission time and execution time of a given job.Resources with high pheromone value are selected to process the submitted jobs. Global pheromone update is performed after the completion of processing the jobs in order to reduce the pheromone value of resources.A simulation environment was developed using Java programming to test the performance of the proposed EACO algorithm against other ant based algorithm, in terms of resource utilization. Experimental results show that EACO produced better grid resource management solution