Risk-aware limited lookahead control for dynamic resource provisioning in enterprise computing systems

Utility or on-demand computing, a provisioningmodel where a service provider makes computing infrastructureavailable to customers as needed, is becoming increasinglycommon in enterprise computing systems. Realizing this modelrequires making dynamic, and sometimes risky, resourceprovisioning and allocation decisions in an uncertain operatingenvironment to maximize revenue while reducing operatingcost. This paper develops an optimization framework whereinthe resource provisioning problem is posed as one of sequentialdecision making under uncertainty and solved using a limitedlookahead control scheme. The proposed approach accounts forthe switching costs incurred during resource provisioning andexplicitly encodes risk in the optimization problem. Simulationsusing workload traces from the Soccer World Cup 1998 website show that a computing system managed by our controllergenerates up to 20% more revenue than a system withoutdynamic control while incurring low control overhead.