Project plan for degree projects

ET2588: Master Thesis in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on

Telecommunication Systems
Version 1.0 February 11, 2015
Tentative title
A model for CPU load monitoring in Federated Clouds
Classification
Name
Krishna Varaynya Chivkula
e-Mail
krch13@student.bth.se
Student 1
Social security nr
9206289168
Visa expiration date June 30th, 2015
Name and title
Prof. Kurt Tutschku
Supervisor e-Mail
Kurt.tutschku@bth.se
Department
Dept. of Communication Systems (DIKO)
Name and title
LEAVE BLANK IF NO EXTERNAL** IS ASSIGNED
External
e-Mail
Company/HEI
*
2012 ACM Computing Classification System: www.acm.org/about/class/2012
**
Co-advisor from industry or a higher education institution (HEI).
Thesis

1 Introduction
Virtualization and Cloud computing are predominant phenomena in telecommunication, which
allow sharing of hardware resources eliminating the constraints on distance. Resource sharing is
an event where a physical entity hosts multiple virtual entities. Semaphore is a desired criterion,
where the access to physical device is controlled in the sense that the virtual entities do not
compete to accommodate them but wait until free space is made available. Race condition is the
situation persisting when the virtual instances attempt to perform at the same time on the physical
device competing for CPU allocation.
Methods of virtualization include Multiplexing, where the bandwidth is shared, Queuing, where
the jobs are sequenced to reach the server. Its key features include isolation and transparency of
virtual elements. Isolation is the concept where one running virtual entity does not impact its
neighbor on same device and transparency is the idea, where in, the virtual element is oblivious
to the fact that it is not being executed on physical resource. This technology has influenced the
reduction in capex and opex.
Cloud computing aims at providing three service models, namely, Infrastructure as a service
IaaS, Platform as a service PaaS, and Software as a service - SaaS. IaaS permits the user to
utilize the infrastructure components like network resources and storage. PaaS aims at providing
an execution platform for the user to build their services. SaaS permits the consumer to use the
already deployed software. Monitoring the performance of these key components in cloud
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infrastructures is an important feature supporting better QoS, QoE and SLAs. OpenStack is a
widely used open source cloud-computing platform providing IaaS implemented in XiFi FI-PPP
architectures. [4]
When a single physical machine hosts multiple virtual elements, it is certain that the CPU load
and utilization and memory usage impact the performance in datacenters. CPU load is considered
to be significant parameter influencing load-balancing techniques and live migration strategies in
clouds. Designing a model for extraction of these values in federated clouds of XiFi and
comparing the values against the existing methods is the idea of the project.
XiFi comes with its own performance monitoring adapters and components that help to collect
processor load from the physical nodes. [1] [2] However, the practicality of these measurement
points has to be observed for proceeding further in the project. In a research paper by
G.Katsarosetal, a model for collecting and monitoring data from both physical and virtual entities
is designed using open source products like Nagios and libvirt. [3] In another paper by Qiang
Huang, an algorithm for checking the CPU speed using real experiments. [5]
This research project aims at modeling a method for identifying CPU load in federated cloud
infrastructures, eventually influencing the load balance and live migration. However, the
developed method can be validated against the linux commands top and /proc/loadavg that
provide the kernel CPU load and utilization. CPU load refers to the number of jobs waiting for
the processor and these commands show the average load every 1, 5 and 15 minutes.

2 Aim and objectives

The aim of the project is to design an implementation method for extracting the load values from
physical and virtual CPUs of federated clouds. The obtained values are then analyzed for their
accuracy and compared to other methods for validation. This statistical analysis is further helpful
for carrying out load balance optimization and live migration strategies. Further more, load is
induced into the system for understanding its impact on performance. A deeper insight into the
monitoring capabilities in federated cloud architectures is developed.

3 Research questions
1)
2)
3)
4)

How to collect accurate physical and virtual CPU load and network link?
How to collect physical CPU load per isolated virtual instance?
How to monitor the performance of XIFI federated clouds based on resource usage?
What are the performance monitoring functionalities of XIFI?
5) How accurate are the values that are collected in existing models?
6) How does the system react when the load is changed?

4 Method
The methodology that would be followed for the project is pure theoretical deductible research
and experimental research. The phases involved are as follows:

1. Literature research on the CPU load extraction techniques in virtual systems and clouds,
Performance monitoring capabilities of XiFi clouds, and realization of the benefits of load
values.
2. Experimental designing and research, where a model is designed for extraction of
resource usage metrics and eventually applying it to the XiFi infrastructure.
3. Identifying the Hardware and Software requirements for the implementation of
experiment.
4. Implementation of the method, statistical analysis of the obtained values.
5. Iteration of experiments for accuracy and validation of the values.

5 Expected outcomes
The following are the expected outcomes of the thesis project

Performance monitoring concepts in federated clouds is reviewed.

Implementation of the model in XiFi infrastructure.
The resource usage of physical, virtual systems and network link is analyzed after
collecting the data.

6 Time and activity plan

A Work Breakdown Structure for the upcoming weeks until the final submissions is as follows
I. Thesis
1. Literature review
1.1 Interested area Identification
1.2 Related work literature review
1.3 Discussion with supervisor
1.4 Identifying research gaps
1.5 Project plan draft
1.6 Approval of Project proposal
2. Implementation
2.1 Provisioning of the hardware and software resources
2.2 Prototyping experimental model
2.3 Installation of execution platform
2.4 Conducting experimental research
2.5 Analysis of the outcome
3. Results
3.1 Supervisors consent on the obtained result
3.2 Documenting the experiment and results
3.3 Review of the final report
3.4 Final Report submission
3.5 Acceptance from Review bench
3.6 Acceptance by examiner
3.7 Scheduling Final Presentation
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3.8 Thesis approval and grading

7 Risk management
Risk analysis and planning
Risks with High probability
1. Unpredictable results To be brought to immediate notice of supervisor for further
guidance.
2. Hardware and software resource failure Seek assistance from IT help desk.
3. Deviation from the planned time In case of exceeding the scheduled time, the working
hours of the student has to be increased.
Risks with Moderate probability
1. Experimental repetitions Repeating the experiments for more accuracy and better
analysis.
2. Communication gap between the student and supervisor Video meetings can be of help in
case of emergencies.
3. Adapting to the work The further work should be adaptable based on the previous and
current outcomes, for which it is needed that the thesis be carried out without constraints
on the research.
Risks with Low probability
1. Delay in thesis Time usage should be strictly monitored to prevent the delay in finishing
the work.
2. Demotivation of student A short break of not more than a week in case of student
emergencies, which could be compensated with writing part.

References
[1] Al-Hazmi, Yahya; et al. "Unified representation of monitoring information across federated cloud
infrastructures," In Proc.of Workshop on Federated Future Internet and Distributed Cloud Testbeds
(FIDC) co-located the Teletraffic Congress (ITC), 2014 26th International, Sept. 2014.
[2] XIFI-D3.2-Infrastructures monitoring and interoperability adaptation components toolkit and API.pdf.
Available at http://wiki.fi-xifi.eu/Main Page
[3] G.Katsarosetal; et al."Amulti-level architecture for collecting and managing monitoring information in
cloud environments," in Cloud Computing and Services Science, 2011 1st Int. Conference on. IEEE, 2011
[4] XIFI-D1.5-Federated Platform Architecture v2.pdf. Available at http://wiki.fi-xifi.eu/Main Page
[5] Qiang Huang et al. Auditing CPU Performance in Public Cloud In Ninth World Congress on
Services, 9th International, IEEE, 2013.