The Inter-cloud meta-scheduling

Inter-cloud is a recently emerging approach that expands cloud elasticity. By facilitating an adaptable setting, it purposes at the realization of a scalable resource provisioning that enables a diversity of cloud user requirements to be handled efficiently. This study’s contribution is in the inter-cloud performance optimization of job executions using metascheduling concepts. This includes the development of the inter-cloud meta-scheduling (ICMS) framework, the ICMS optimal schemes and the SimIC toolkit. The ICMS model is an architectural strategy for managing and scheduling user services in virtualized dynamically inter-linked clouds. This is achieved by the development of a model that includes a set of algorithms, namely the Service-Request, Service-Distribution, Service-Availability and Service-Allocation algorithms. These along with resource management optimal schemes offer the novel functionalities of the ICMS where the message exchanging implements the job distributions method, the VM deployment offers the VM management features and the local resource management system details the management of the local cloud schedulers. The generated system offers great flexibility by facilitating a lightweight resource management methodology while at the same time handling the heterogeneity of different clouds through advanced service level agreement coordination. Experimental results are productive as the proposed ICMS model achieves enhancement of the performance of service distribution for a variety of criteria such as service execution times, makespan, turnaround times, utilization levels and energy consumption rates for various inter-cloud entities, e.g. users, hosts and VMs. For example, ICMS optimizes the performance of a non-meta-brokering inter-cloud by 3%, while ICMS with full optimal schemes achieves 9% optimization for the same configurations. The whole experimental platform is implemented into the inter-cloud Simulation toolkit (SimIC) developed by the author, which is a discrete event simulation framework

Cooperative scheduling and load balancing techniques in fog and edge computing

Fog and Edge Computing are two models that reached maturity in the last decade. Today, they are two solid concepts and plenty of literature tried to develop them. Also corroborated by the development of technologies, like for example 5G, they can now be considered de facto standards when building low and ultra-low latency applications, privacy-oriented solutions, industry 4.0 and smart city infrastructures. The common trait of Fog and Edge computing environments regards their inherent distributed and heterogeneous nature where the multiple (Fog or Edge) nodes are able to interact with each other with the essential purpose of pre-processing data gathered by the uncountable number of sensors to which they are connected to, even by running significant ML models and relying upon specific processors (TPU). However, nodes are often placed in a geographic domain, like a smart city, and the dynamic of the traffic during the day may cause some nodes to be overwhelmed by requests while others instead may become completely idle. To achieve the optimal usage of the system and also to guarantee the best possible QoS across all the users connected to the Fog or Edge nodes, the need to design load balancing and scheduling algorithms arises. In particular, a reasonable solution is to enable nodes to cooperate. This capability represents the main objective of this thesis, which is the design of fully distributed algorithms and solutions whose purpose is the one of balancing the load across all the nodes, also by following, if possible, QoS requirements in terms of latency or imposing constraints in terms of power consumption when the nodes are powered by green energy sources. Unfortunately, when a central orchestrator is missing, a crucial element which makes the design of such algorithms difficult is that nodes need to know the state of the others in order to make the best possible scheduling decision. However, it is not possible to retrieve the state without introducing further latency during the service of the request. Furthermore, the retrieved information about the state is always old, and as a consequence, the decision is always relying on imprecise data. In this thesis, the problem is circumvented in two main ways. The first one considers randomised algorithms which avoid probing all of the neighbour nodes in favour of at maximum two nodes picked at random. This is proven to bring an exponential improvement in performance with respect to the probe of a single node. The second approach, instead, considers Reinforcement Learning as a technique for inferring the state of the other nodes thanks to the reward received by the agents when requests are forwarded. Moreover, the thesis will also focus on the energy aspect of the Edge devices. In particular, will be analysed a scenario of Green Edge Computing, where devices are powered only by Photovoltaic Panels and a scenario of mobile offloading targeting ML image inference applications. Lastly, a final glance will be given at a series of infrastructural studies, which will give the foundations for implementing the proposed algorithms on real devices, in particular, Single Board Computers (SBCs). There will be presented a structural scheme of a testbed of Raspberry Pi boards, and a fully-fledged framework called ``P2PFaaS'' which allows the implementation of load balancing and scheduling algorithms based on the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) paradigm

Integrating multiple clusters for compute-intensive applications

Multicluster grids provide one promising solution to satisfying the growing computational demands of compute-intensive applications. However, it is challenging to seamlessly integrate all participating clusters in different domains into a single virtual computational platform. In order to fully utilize the capabilities of multicluster grids, computer scientists need to deal with the issue of joining together participating autonomic systems practically and efficiently to execute grid-enabled applications. Driven by several compute-intensive applications, this theses develops a multicluster grid management toolkit called Pelecanus to bridge the gap between user\u27s needs and the system\u27s heterogeneity. Application scientists will be able to conduct very large-scale execution across multiclusters with transparent QoS assurance. A novel model called DA-TC (Dynamic Assignment with Task Containers) is developed and is integrated into Pelecanus. This model uses the concept of a task container that allows one to decouple resource allocation from resource binding. It employs static load balancing for task container distribution and dynamic load balancing for task assignment. The slowest resources become useful rather than be bottlenecks in this manner. A cluster abstraction is implemented, which not only provides various cluster information for the DA-TC execution model, but also can be used as a standalone toolkit to monitor and evaluate the clusters\u27 functionality and performance. The performance of the proposed DA-TC model is evaluated both theoretically and experimentally. Results demonstrate the importance of reducing queuing time in decreasing the total turnaround time for an application. Experiments were conducted to understand the performance of various aspects of the DA-TC model. Experiments showed that our model could significantly reduce turnaround time and increase resource utilization for our targeted application scenarios. Four applications are implemented as case studies to determine the applicability of the DA-TC model. In each case the turnaround time is greatly reduced, which demonstrates that the DA-TC model is efficient for assisting application scientists in conducting their research. In addition, virtual resources were integrated into the DA-TC model for application execution. Experiments show that the execution model proposed in this thesis can work seamlessly with multiple hybrid grid/cloud resources to achieve reduced turnaround time

Personal mobile grids with a honeybee inspired resource scheduler

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The overall aim of the thesis has been to introduce Personal Mobile Grids (PMGrids) as a novel paradigm in grid computing that scales grid infrastructures to mobile devices and extends grid entities to individual personal users. In this thesis, architectural designs as well as simulation models for PM-Grids are developed. The core of any grid system is its resource scheduler. However, virtually all current conventional grid schedulers do not address the non-clairvoyant scheduling problem, where job information is not available before the end of execution. Therefore, this thesis proposes a honeybee inspired resource scheduling heuristic for PM-Grids (HoPe) incorporating a radical approach to grid resource scheduling to tackle this problem. A detailed design and implementation of HoPe with a decentralised self-management and adaptive policy are initiated. Among the other main contributions are a comprehensive taxonomy of grid systems as well as a detailed analysis of the honeybee colony and its nectar acquisition process (NAP), from the resource scheduling perspective, which have not been presented in any previous work, to the best of our knowledge. PM-Grid designs and HoPe implementation were evaluated thoroughly through a strictly controlled empirical evaluation framework with a well-established heuristic in high throughput computing, the opportunistic scheduling heuristic (OSH), as a benchmark algorithm. Comparisons with optimal values and worst bounds are conducted to gain a clear insight into HoPe behaviour, in terms of stability, throughput, turnaround time and speedup, under different running conditions of number of jobs and grid scales. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of HoPe performance where it has successfully maintained optimum stability and throughput in more than 95% of the experiments, with HoPe achieving three times better than the OSH under extremely heavy loads. Regarding the turnaround time and speedup, HoPe has effectively achieved less than 50% of the turnaround time incurred by the OSH, while doubling its speedup in more than 60% of the experiments. These results indicate the potential of both PM-Grids and HoPe in realising futuristic grid visions. Therefore considering the deployment of PM-Grids in real life scenarios and the utilisation of HoPe in other parallel processing and high throughput computing systems are recommended

Multi-resource management in embedded real-time systems

This thesis addresses the problem of online multi-resource management in embedded real-time systems. It focuses on three research questions. The first question concentrates on how to design an efficient hierarchical scheduling framework for supporting independent development and analysis of component based systems, to provide temporal isolation between components. The second question investigates how to change the mapping of resources to tasks and components during run-time efficiently and predictably, and how to analyze the latency of such a system mode change in systems comprised of several scalable components. The third question deals with the scheduling and analysis of a set of parallel-tasks with real-time constraints which require simultaneous access to several different resources. For providing temporal isolation we chose a reservation-based approach. We first focused on processor reservations, where timed events play an important role. Common examples are task deadlines, periodic release of tasks, budget replenishment and budget depletion. Efficient timer management is therefore essential. We investigated the overheads in traditional timer management techniques and presented a mechanism called Relative Timed Event Queues (RELTEQ), which provides an expressive set of primitives at a low processor and memory overhead. We then leveraged RELTEQ to create an efficient, modular and extensible design for enhancing a real-time operating system with periodic tasks, polling, idling periodic and deferrable servers, and a two-level fixed-priority Hierarchical Scheduling Framework (HSF). The HSF design provides temporal isolation and supports independent development of components by separating the global and local scheduling, and allowing each server to define a dedicated scheduler. Furthermore, the design addresses the system overheads inherent to an HSF and prevents undesirable interference between components. It limits the interference of inactive servers on the system level by means of wakeup events and a combination of inactive server queues with a stopwatch queue. Our implementation is modular and requires only a few modifications of the underlying operating system. We then investigated scalable components operating in a memory-constrained system. We first showed how to reduce the memory requirements in a streaming multimedia application, based on a particular priority assignment of the different components along the processing chain. Then we investigated adapting the resource provisions to tasks during runtime, referred to as mode changes. We presented a novel mode change protocol called Swift Mode Changes, which relies on Fixed Priority with Deferred preemption Scheduling to reduce the mode change latency bound compared to existing protocols based on Fixed Priority Preemptive Scheduling. We then presented a new partitioned parallel-task scheduling algorithm called Parallel-SRP (PSRP), which generalizes MSRP for multiprocessors, and the corresponding schedulability analysis for the problem of multi-resource scheduling of parallel tasks with real-time constraints. We showed that the algorithm is deadlock-free, derived a maximum bound on blocking, and used this bound as a basis for a schedulability test. We then demonstrated how PSRP can exploit the inherent parallelism of a platform comprised of multiple heterogeneous resources. Finally, we presented Grasp, which is a visualization toolset aiming to provide insight into the behavior of complex real-time systems. Its flexible plugin infrastructure allows for easy extension with custom visualization and analysis techniques for automatic trace verification. Its capabilities include the visualization of hierarchical multiprocessor systems, including partitioned and global multiprocessor scheduling with migrating tasks and jobs, communication between jobs via shared memory and message passing, and hierarchical scheduling in combination with multiprocessor scheduling. For tracing distributed systems with asynchronous local clocks Grasp also supports the synchronization of traces from different processors during the visualization and analysis

Payload operations control center network (POCCNET) systems definition phase study report

The results of the studies performed during the systems definition phase of POCCNET are presented. The concept of POCCNET as a system of standard POCCs is described and an analysis of system requirements is also included. Alternative systems concepts were evaluated as well as various methods for development of reliable reusable software. A number of POCC application areas, such as command management, on board computer support, and simulation were also studied. Other areas of investigation included the operation of POCCNET systems, the facility requirements and usage

Performance requirements verification during software systems development

Requirements verification refers to the assurance that the implemented system reflects the specified requirements. Requirement verification is a process that continues through the life cycle of the software system. When the software crisis hit in 1960, a great deal of attention was placed on the verification of functional requirements, which were considered to be of crucial importance. Over the last decade, researchers have addressed the importance of integrating non-functional requirement in the verification process. An important non-functional requirement for software is performance. Performance requirement verification is known as Software Performance Evaluation. This thesis will look at performance evaluation of software systems. The performance evaluation of software systems is a hugely valuable task, especially in the early stages of a software project development. Many methods for integrating performance analysis into the software development process have been proposed. These methodologies work by utilising the software architectural models known in the software engineering field by transforming these into performance models, which can be analysed to gain the expected performance characteristics of the projected system. This thesis aims to bridge the knowledge gap between performance and software engineering domains by introducing semi-automated transformation methodologies. These are designed to be generic in order for them to be integrated into any software engineering development process. The goal of these methodologies is to provide performance related design guidance during the system development. This thesis introduces two model transformation methodologies. These are the improved state marking methodology and the UML-EQN methodology. It will also introduce the UML-JMT tool which was built to realise the UML-EQN methodology. With the help of automatic design models to performance model algorithms introduced in the UML-EQN methodology, a software engineer with basic knowledge of performance modelling paradigm can conduct a performance study on a software system design. This was proved in a qualitative study where the methodology and the tool deploying this methodology were tested by software engineers with varying levels of background, experience and from different sectors of the software development industry. The study results showed an acceptance for this methodology and the UML-JMT tool. As performance verification is a part of any software engineering methodology, we have to define frame works that would deploy performance requirements validation in the context of software engineering. Agile development paradigm was the result of changes in the overall environment of the IT and business worlds. These techniques are based on iterative development, where requirements, designs and developed programmes evolve continually. At present, the majority of literature discussing the role of requirements engineering in agile development processes seems to indicate that non-functional requirements verification is an unchartered territory. CPASA (Continuous Performance Assessment of Software Architecture) was designed to work in software projects where the performance can be affected by changes in the requirements and matches the main practices of agile modelling and development. The UML-JMT tool was designed to deploy the CPASA Performance evaluation tests

Management of Cloud systems applied to eHealth

This thesis explores techniques, models and algorithms for an efficient management of Cloud systems and how to apply them to the healthcare sector in order to improve current treatments. It presents two Cloud-based eHealth applications to telemonitor and control smoke-quitting and hypertensive patients. Different Cloud-based models were obtained and used to develop a Cloudbased infrastructure where these applications are deployed. The results show that these applications improve current treatments and that can be scaled as computing requirements grow. Multiple Cloud architectures and models were analyzed and then implemented using different techniques and scenarios. The Smoking Patient Control (S-PC) tool was deployed and tested in a real environment, showing a 28.4% increase in long-term abstinence. The Hypertension Patient Control (H-PC) tool, was successfully designed and implemented, and the computing boundaries were measuredAquesta tesi explora tèniques, models i algorismes per una gestió eficient en sistemes al Núvol i com aplicar-ho en el sector de la salut per tal de millorar els tractaments actuals. Presenta dues aplicacions de salut electrònica basades en el Núvol per telemonitoritzar i controlar pacients fumadors i hipertensos. S'ha obtingut diferents models basats en el Núvol i s'han utilitzat per a desenvolupar una infraestructura on desplegar aquestes aplicacions. Els resultats mostren que aquestes aplicacions milloren els tractaments actuals així com escalen a mesura que els requeriments computacionals augmenten. Múltiples arquitectures i models han estat analitzats i implementats utilitzant diferents tècniques i escenaris. L'aplicació Smoking Patient Control (S-PC) ha estat desplegada i provada en un entorn real, aconseguint un augment del 28,4% en l'absistinència a llarg termini de pacients fumadors. L'aplicació Hypertension Patient Control (H-PC) ha estat dissenyada i implementada amb èxit, i els seus límits computacionals han estat mesurats.Esta tesis explora ténicas, modelos y algoritmos para una gestión eficiente de sistemas en la Nube y como aplicarlo en el sector de la salud con el fin de mejorar los tratamientos actuales. Presenta dos aplicaciones de salud electrónica basadas en la Nube para telemonitorizar y controlar pacientes fumadores e hipertensos. Se han obtenido diferentes modelos basados en la Nube y se han utilizado para desarrollar una infraestructura donde desplegar estas aplicaciones. Los resultados muestran que estas aplicaciones mejoran los tratamientos actuales así como escalan a medida que los requerimientos computacionales aumentan. Múltiples arquitecturas y modelos han sido analizados e implementados utilizando diferentes técnicas y escenarios. La aplicación Smoking Patient Control (S-PC) se ha desplegado y provado en un entorno real, consiguiendo un aumento del 28,4% en la abstinencia a largo plazo de pacientes fumadores. La aplicación Hypertension Patient Control (H-PC) ha sido diseñada e implementada con éxito, y sus límites computacionales han sido medidos

An efficient, practical, portable mapping technique on computational grids

Grid computing provides a powerful, virtual parallel system known as a computational Grid on which users can run parallel applications to solve problems quickly. However, users must be careful to allocate tasks to nodes properly because improper allocation of only one task could result in lengthy executions of applications, or even worse, applications could crash. This allocation problem is called the mapping problem, and an entity that tackles this problem is called a mapper. In this thesis, we aim to develop an efficient, practical, portable mapper. To study the mapping problem, researchers often make unrealistic assumptions such as that nodes of Grids are always reliable, that execution times of tasks assigned to nodes are known a priori, or that detailed information of parallel applications is always known. As a result, the practicality and portability of mappers developed in such conditions are uncertain. Our review of related work suggested that a more efficient tool is required to study this problem; therefore, we developed GMap, a simulator researchers/developers can use to develop practical, portable mappers. The fact that nodes are not always reliable leads to the development of an algorithm for predicting the reliability of nodes and a predictor for identifying reliable nodes of Grids. Experimental results showed that the predictor reduced the chance of failures in executions of applications by half. The facts that execution times of tasks assigned to nodes are not known a priori and that detailed information of parallel applications is not alw ays known, lead to the evaluation of five nearest-neighbour (nn) execution time estimators: k-nn smoothing, k-nn, adaptive k-nn, one-nn, and adaptive one-nn. Experimental results showed that adaptive k-nn was the most efficient one. We also implemented the predictor and the estimator in GMap. Using GMap, we could reliably compare the efficiency of six mapping algorithms: Min-min, Max-min, Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search, and Quick-quality Map, with none of the preceding unrealistic assumptions. Experimental results showed that Quick-quality Map was the most efficient one. As a result of these findings, we achieved our goal in developing an efficient, practical, portable mapper

Optimización del rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en sistemas masivamente paralelos

RESUMEN Los sistemas heterogéneos son cada vez más relevantes, debido a sus capacidades de rendimiento y eficiencia energética, estando presentes en todo tipo de plataformas de cómputo, desde dispositivos embebidos y servidores, hasta nodos HPC de grandes centros de datos. Su complejidad hace que sean habitualmente usados bajo el paradigma de tareas y el modelo de programación host-device. Esto penaliza fuertemente el aprovechamiento de los aceleradores y el consumo energético del sistema, además de dificultar la adaptación de las aplicaciones. La co-ejecución permite que todos los dispositivos cooperen para computar el mismo problema, consumiendo menos tiempo y energía. No obstante, los programadores deben encargarse de toda la gestión de los dispositivos, la distribución de la carga y la portabilidad del código entre sistemas, complicando notablemente su programación. Esta tesis ofrece contribuciones para mejorar el rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en estos sistemas masivamente paralelos. Se realizan propuestas que abordan objetivos generalmente contrapuestos: se mejora la usabilidad y la programabilidad, a la vez que se garantiza una mayor abstracción y extensibilidad del sistema, y al mismo tiempo se aumenta el rendimiento, la escalabilidad y la eficiencia energética. Para ello, se proponen dos motores de ejecución con enfoques completamente distintos. EngineCL, centrado en OpenCL y con una API de alto nivel, favorece la máxima compatibilidad entre todo tipo de dispositivos y proporciona un sistema modular extensible. Su versatilidad permite adaptarlo a entornos para los que no fue concebido, como aplicaciones con ejecuciones restringidas por tiempo o simuladores HPC de dinámica molecular, como el utilizado en un centro de investigación internacional. Considerando las tendencias industriales y enfatizando la aplicabilidad profesional, CoexecutorRuntime proporciona un sistema flexible centrado en C++/SYCL que dota de soporte a la co-ejecución a la tecnología oneAPI. Este runtime acerca a los programadores al dominio del problema, posibilitando la explotación de estrategias dinámicas adaptativas que mejoran la eficiencia en todo tipo de aplicaciones.ABSTRACT Heterogeneous systems are becoming increasingly relevant, due to their performance and energy efficiency capabilities, being present in all types of computing platforms, from embedded devices and servers to HPC nodes in large data centers. Their complexity implies that they are usually used under the task paradigm and the host-device programming model. This strongly penalizes accelerator utilization and system energy consumption, as well as making it difficult to adapt applications. Co-execution allows all devices to simultaneously compute the same problem, cooperating to consume less time and energy. However, programmers must handle all device management, workload distribution and code portability between systems, significantly complicating their programming. This thesis offers contributions to improve performance and energy efficiency in these massively parallel systems. The proposals address the following generally conflicting objectives: usability and programmability are improved, while ensuring enhanced system abstraction and extensibility, and at the same time performance, scalability and energy efficiency are increased. To achieve this, two runtime systems with completely different approaches are proposed. EngineCL, focused on OpenCL and with a high-level API, provides an extensible modular system and favors maximum compatibility between all types of devices. Its versatility allows it to be adapted to environments for which it was not originally designed, including applications with time-constrained executions or molecular dynamics HPC simulators, such as the one used in an international research center. Considering industrial trends and emphasizing professional applicability, CoexecutorRuntime provides a flexible C++/SYCL-based system that provides co-execution support for oneAPI technology. This runtime brings programmers closer to the problem domain, enabling the exploitation of dynamic adaptive strategies that improve efficiency in all types of applications.Funding: This PhD has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU16/03299 grant), the Spanish Science and Technology Commission under contracts TIN2016-76635-C2-2-R and PID2019-105660RB-C22. This work has also been partially supported by the Mont-Blanc 3: European Scalable and Power Efficient HPC Platform based on Low-Power Embedded Technology project (G.A. No. 671697) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (H2020 Programme). Some activities have also been funded by the Spanish Science and Technology Commission under contract TIN2016-81840-REDT (CAPAP-H6 network). The Integration II: Hybrid programming models of Chapter 4 has been partially performed under the Project HPC-EUROPA3 (INFRAIA-2016-1-730897), with the support of the EC Research Innovation Action under the H2020 Programme. In particular, the author gratefully acknowledges the support of the SPMT Department of the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS)