Paper: Using Proxies to Accelerate Cloud Applications  |
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July 22 2009
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By Jon Weissman and Siddharth Ramakrishnan.
Abstract: A rich cloud ecosystem is unfolding with clouds emerging to provide platforms and services of many shapes and sizes. We speculate that future network applications may wish to utilize and synthesize capabilities from multiple clouds. The problem is this may entail significant data communication that derives from the client server paradigm imposed by most clouds. To address this bottleneck, we propose a cloud proxy network that allows optimized data-centric operations to be performed at strategic network locations. We show the potential of this architecture for accelerating cloud applications.
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| Paper: Nebulas: Using Distributed Voluntary Resources to Build Clouds |
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July 22 2009
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By Abhishek Chandra and Jon Weissman.
Abstract: Current cloud services are deployed on well provisioned and centrally controlled infrastructures. However, there are several classes of services for which the current cloud model may not fit well: some do not need strong performance guarantees, the pricing may be too expensive for some, and some may be constrained by the data movement costs to the cloud. To satisfy the requirements of such services, we propose the idea of using distributed voluntary resources—those donated by end-user hosts—to form nebulas: more dispersed, less managed clouds. We first discuss the requirements of cloud services and the challenges in meeting these requirements in such voluntary clouds. We then present some possible solutions to these challenges and also discuss opportunities for further improvements to make nebulas a viable cloud paradigm.
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| Paper: Virtual Putty: Reshaping the Physical Footprint of Virtual Machines |
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July 22 2009
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By Jason Sonnek and Abhishek Chandra.
Abstract: Virtualization is a key technology underlying cloud computing platforms, where applications encapsulated within virtual machines are dynamically mapped onto a pool of physical servers. In this paper, we argue that cloud providers can significantly lower operational costs, and improve hosted application performance, by accounting for affinities and conflicts between co-placed virtual machines. We show how these affinities can be inferred using location-independent VM characterizations called virtual footprints, and then show how these virtual footprints can be used to reshape the physical footprint of a VM—its physical resource consumption—to achieve higher VM consolidation and application performance in a cloud environment. We also identify three general principles for minimizing a virtual machine’s physical footprint, and discuss challenges in applying these principles in practice.
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