MORPHOSYS: efficient colocation of QoS-constrained workloads in the cloud

In hosting environments such as IaaS clouds, desirable application performance is usually guaranteed through the use of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which specify minimal fractions of resource capacities that must be allocated for use for proper operation. Arbitrary colocation of applications with different SLAs on a single host may result in inefficient utilization of the host’s resources. In this paper, we propose that periodic resource allocation and consumption models be used for a more granular expression of SLAs. Our proposed SLA model has the salient feature that it exposes flexibilities that enable the IaaS provider to safely transform SLAs from one form to another for the purpose of achieving more efficient colocation. Towards that goal, we present MorphoSys: a framework for a service that allows the manipulation of SLAs to enable efficient colocation of workloads. We present results from extensive trace-driven simulations of colocated Video-on-Demand servers in a cloud setting. The results show that potentially-significant reduction in wasted resources (by as much as 60%) are possible using MorphoSys.First author draf

“Almost” subsidy-free spatial pricing in a multi-dimensional setting

Consider a population of citizens uniformly spread over the entire plane, that faces a problem of locating public facilities to be used by its members. The cost of every facility is financed by its users, who also face an idiosyncratic private access cost to the facility. We assume that the facilities' cost is independent of location and access costs are linear with respect to the Euclidean distance. We show that an external intervention that covers 0.19% of the facility cost is sufficient to guarantee secession-proofness or no cross-subsidization, where no group of individuals is charged more than its stand alone cost incurred if it had acted on its own. Moreover, we demonstrate that in this case the Rawlsian access pricing is the only secession-proof allocation.secession-proofness, optimal jurisdictions, Rawlsian allocation, hexagonal partition, cross-subsidization

Extending Message Passing Interface Windows to Storage

This work presents an extension to MPI supporting the one-sided communication model and window allocations in storage. Our design transparently integrates with the current MPI implementations, enabling applications to target MPI windows in storage, memory or both simultaneously, without major modifications. Initial performance results demonstrate that the presented MPI window extension could potentially be helpful for a wide-range of use-cases and with low-overhead

‘Almost’ subsidy-free spatial pricing in a multi-dimensional setting

Consider a population of citizens uniformly spread over the entire plane, that faces a problem of locating public facilities to be used by its members. The cost of every facility is financed by its users, who also face an idiosyncratic private access cost to the facility. We assume that the facilities cost is independent of location and access costs are linear with respect to the Euclidean distance. We show that an external intervention that covers O.19% of the facility cost is sufficient to guarantee secession-proofness or no cross-subsidization, where no group of individuals is charged more than its stand alone cost incurred if it had acted on its own. Moreover, we demonstrate that in this case the Rawlsian access pricing is the only secession-proof allocation.Secession-proofness, optimal jurisdictions, Rawlsian allocation, hexagonal partition, cross-subsidiziation

Knowledge diffusion through employee mobility

In high-tech industries, one important method of diffusion is through employee mobility: many of the entering firms are started by employees from incumbent firms using some of their former employers’ technological know-how. This paper explores the effect of incorporating this mechanism in a general industry framework by allowing employees to imitate their employers’ know-how. The equilibrium is Pareto optimal since the employees “pay” for the possibility of learning their employers’ know-how. The model’s implications are consistent with data from the rigid disk drive industry. These implications concern the effects of know-how on firm formation and survival.Technological innovations ; Research and development

“Almost” Subsidy-free Spatial Pricing in a Multi-dimensional Setting

Consider a population of citizens uniformly spread over the entire plane, that faces a problem of locating public facilities to be used by its members. The cost of every facility is financed by its users, who also face an idiosyncratic private access cost to the facility. We assume that the facilities’ cost is independent of location and access costs are linear with respect to the Euclidean distance. We show that an external intervention that covers 0.19% of the facility cost is sufficient to guarantee secession-proofness or no cross-subsidization, where no group of individuals is charged more than its stand alone cost incurred if it had acted on its own. Moreover, we demonstrate that in this case the Rawlsian access pricing is the only secession-proof allocation.Secession-Proofness, Optimal Jurisdictions, Rawlsian Allocation, Hexagonal Partition, Cross-Subsidization