Virtual Machine Placement in Predictable Computing Clouds

Literature about cloud computing often makes the assumption that the resource demands of computing clouds (and the virtual machines that constitute them) are unpredictable in the short term. There are, however, specific use cases where resource demands can be anticipated. This paper discusses dissertation work-in-progress which shows that, in certain predictable environments, preemptive virtual machine migration can improve both computational resource utilization and the overall user experience. A novel algorithm which reacts to anticipated future resource demands based on past behavior of virtual machines is presented. Simulations are used to quantify performance improvements.