Maximizing server utilization while meeting critical SLAs via weight-based collocation management

Servers in most data centers are often underutilized due to concerns about SLA violations that may result from resource contention as server utilization increases. This low utilization means that neither the capital investment in the servers nor the power consumed is being used as effectively as it could be. In this paper, we present a novel method for managing the collocation of critical (e.g., user interactive) and non-critical (e.g., batch) workloads on virtualized multicore servers. Unlike previous cap-based solutions, our approach improves server utilization while meeting the SLAs of critical workloads by prioritizing resource access using Linux cgroups weights. Extensive experimental results suggest that the proposed work conserving collocation method is able to utilize a server to nearly 100% while keeping the performance loss of critical workloads within the specified limits.