Chapter 6 How to choose cloud services: towards a cloud computing cost model?

Z. Gui, J. Xia, N. Zhou, Q. Huang, 2013. Chapter 6 How to choose cloud services: towards a cloud computing cost model, In Spatial Cloud Computing: a practical approach, edited by C.Yang, Q. Huang, Z. Li, C. Xu, K. Liu, CRC Press: pp. 91-106.

Chapter 6 How to choose cloud services: towards a cloud computing cost model?

Zhipeng Gui, Jizhe Xia, Nanyin Zhou and Qunying Huang

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Learning Objectives

•Importance and challenges of cloud computing selection•Factors impacting cloud computing selection•Cloud solution evaluation and cost model•How to design and use cloud adoption advisory tool

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Learning Materials

•Videos: o Chapter_6_Video.mov

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Learning Modules1. Importance and challenges of cloud computing selection

2. Factors impacting cloud computing selection

• Cloud computing capacity provisioning

• Pricing Rules

• Application Features & Requirements

3. ESIP Cloud adoption Advisory Tool (Use Case)

• Architecture & Implementation

• Web GUI & Usage

4. Conclusion and discussions4


Importance of Cloud Computing Selection

Which IaaS or PaaS cloud service should be chosen?

What is best VM configuration (capacities & cost-effectiveness)?

Which cloud storage types are best to store the geo-data and

other application data respectively?

Where is the best physical location for hosting these computing

resources, according to the potential distribution of application

end users?

How much need to pay every day, month and year?

Critical questions for cloud consumers in selection:

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Information collection perspective: Increasing providers (Azure, EC2, Google App…)

Diverse configurations & capacities (VM, Storage, Network…)

Multiple pricing models (On-demand/Reserved/Bidding/Units)

Complicated techniques details (Hypervisors, Firewall, VPN…)

Different customer services mode and quality

Reputation & User feedbacks

Heterogeneous content organization on different web portals

Collecting cloud information are extremely time-consuming!

Challenges of Cloud Computing Selection

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Decision Making perspective: Different requirements on computing resources (Application feature)

Different budgeted investments and expectations (Consumers’ business purpose)

Different IT technologies, strengths and weaknesses in computational capacities

(Platform feature)

Different Pricing modes (on-demand/reserved/bidding) (Providers’ Business

Strategy)

Challenges of Cloud Computing Selection

So, cloud selection is a complicated decision-making process! Business expectations Investment/Cost Capacity provisioning/Service Offerings Application Requirements Trade-Off

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Design and develop a Web-based Advisory Tool assist cloud consumers easily

select the best solutions based

on their application requirements

Integrate computing experiences

and knowledge

Collect cloud information from

mainstream cloud platforms

Solutions for Cloud Computing Selection

AdvisoryTool

MeasurementCriteria

EvaluationMechanism

WebTechnologies

SolutionGeneratingStrategies

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• Pricing Rules




• Web GUI & Usage



• Development of cloud Metrics Defining globally accepted measures for cloud services

NIST RATAX Cloud Metrics Sub Group Cloud Services Measurement Initiative Consortium (CSMIC)

Progress: Various models have been proposed. Issue: a consistent and operable model is desired.

• Accountability• Agility• Assurance

• Financial• Performance• Security and Privacy• Usability

Service Measurement Index (SMI)

Cloud Metrics for Platform Evaluation

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• Performance/Computational Capability• Computing Capability

CPU/GPU Cores & Speed, Memory Size, VM NumberServer Type (e.g., VM, HPC, GPU Cluster, Dedicated Server)

• Storage Capability• Volume• I/O Speed• Durability• Storage Type/Technology (e.g., SSD; EBS, S3 )

• Network Capability• Bandwidth• Network Type (e.g., CDN, VLAN, VPC)• Load Balancing

Cloud Computing Capacity Provisioning

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• IT Security & Privacy• Data Encryption (e.g., On Disk, In Transit)• Firewall• SSL• Security Certifications (e.g., PCI, SAS 70)

• Service & Management• Control/Interaction Interface (e.g., Web, API, Command Line, GUI)• Monitoring & Reporting Tool• Customer Service Channel (e.g., web on-line, phone, forum)


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• Reliability & Trustworthiness• SLA • Disaster Recovery• Redundant Site (Multiple Data Center)• Certifications

• Flexibility• Degree of Customization (e.g., Customized VM)• Auto Scaling (e.g., scale up, scale out)• Data Volume Limitation (per account)• Compatibility (e.g., AWS, OCCI)• Elastic IP/ Provide OS Templates• Other Supports (e.g., OS Type, Programming Languages, Hypervisor)


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• Charging Modes• On Demand/Pay-as-you-go• Reserved (fixed prices or related to Intensity of utilization)• Bidding (related to demands and supply on market)• Credit

• Minimum Billing Cycles e.g., 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 month

• Charging Contents(Resource Offerings)VM, Storage, Network, Software Package, Customer Service, Data Transfer, extra IP, …

• Penalty/Compensation

Pricing Rules/Monetary Cost

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• Computational Intensity Features• Computing Insensitive• Data Intensive• Communication Intensive

• Application Types• Web Application (e.g., Portals, Web services)• Data Storing Application (e.g., storing Earth

Observation/Social Media Data using cloud storage)• Scientific Computing/Simulation (e.g., weather

forecasting)• …

• Requirements• Hardware/Software Demands• Payment Preferences

Application Features & Requirements

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• Pricing Rules




• Web GUI & Usage



Solution Creator/Filter

Cloud Consumers

Solution Evaluator

Information Collector

Web-based GUI/Consulting Interface

Amazon EC2

Azure

Google

.

.

.

.

.

.

Advisory Tool

.

.

.

Cloud Information

Databaseupdate

② sent requirement description

⑤ return recommended

solutions

③ query④ evaluatecollect

① interact

Cloud Providers

Architecture & Implementation

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Architecture and Interaction workflow of the Advisory Tool



Cloud Platform

name...

Basic Capability

value...

Pricing Rule

currencyType...measurementTimeUnit

dataCentersresourcespricingRulesbasicCapabilities...

Data Center

name

Resource Offering

nameresourceType

Region

nameparentRegion

applyTo

configuration...

bind

locateAt

restrictTo

name

1

1..*

11..*

1..*

1..*

1

1..*

1..*

1

1

1

1..*

1..*

Computer

Dedicated ServerCloud Storage

Network

Software Package

Customer Service

IP Address

Data Transfer

…

On Demand

Reserved

BiddingDiscount Rule

User Feedback1..*

1..*1..*

1..*

location...

targetTo targetTo

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Predefined Virtual Machine

Customized Virtual Machine

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Unified Information model:unifying heterogeneous information from multiple cloud providers


Periodically crawl and parse web pages (near real-time) Notification & subscription mechanism (real-time update)

• Amazon EC2• Microsoft Azure• Google App• Flexiscale• Opsource

Collected 10 Platforms• Joyent• Rackspace• CloudSigma• GoGrid• Terremark


Parser Group

Hibernate

Parser 1

UpdaterParser 2

Parser n

. . .

CollectorCloud Platforms

Updated

Historical

User feedback

Database

Platform 1

Platform 2

Platform n

. . .

② collect

② collect

② collect ④ insert with timestamp

④ update

Scheduler

① trigger

③ invoke

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Cloud Information Collector & DB design


Web GUI and Usage

• Usage workflow

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2. Specify Requirements

3. Generate Solutions

4. View Solution ConfigurationDetails

7. Compare VM ComputationalCapacity

8. Save Solutions

5. Check Resources Distribution

6. Compare Monetary Cost

1. Select Application Type

Video: Chapter_6_Video.mov


Web GUI and Usage

• Step 1. Select Matched Application Type From Main GUI

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8. Save Solutions





Web GUI and Usage

• Step 2. Specify Application Requirements in Input GUI

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8. Save Solutions





Web GUI and Usage

• Step 3. Generate Solutions by Click “Get Solutions” Button

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8. Save Solutions




“Just Click Here”


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Web GUI and Usage

Sortable Solution Tables (Recommended & Feasible Solutions)

• Step 4. View Solution Configuration Details from Tables

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8. Save Solutions





Web GUI and Usage

• Step 5. Check Geo-distribution of Cloud Resources

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8. Save Solutions





Minimum & Maximum Fee Bar Charts VM Fee Storage Fee DataTransfer Fee

Web GUI and Usage

• Step 6. Compare Potential Monetary Cost from Fee Charts

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8. Save Solutions





VM Configuration Line Series ChartCPU Cores CPU Units CPU Speed RAM Bandwidth Local Disk

Web GUI and Usage

• Step 7. Compare VM Computational Capacity Comparison

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8. Save Solutions





Web GUI and Usage

• Step 8. Save Solutions to PDF File by Click “Print” Button

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8. Save Solutions




“Just Click Here”





• Pricing Rules




• Web GUI & Usage



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• Generate feasible cloud solutions according to cloud consumer’s inputs.

• Recommend solutions based on embedded evaluation mechanism.

• Calculate and visually compare the cost and capacities of the solutions.

• Automatically collect and manage the pricing and configuration information of multiple cloud vendors.

Conclusion

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• Precise Cost Calculation Model (Uncertainty & Mutability)• Composition of different fee parts• Reasonable Prediction• Analysis the Return On Investment (ROI)

• Advanced Evaluation Model & Selection Principles• Leverage/Consider multiple factors: fee, capacity provisioning,

application features, geo-location, policy…• Optimize cloud resources allocation to improve performance &

reduce fee using Spatiotemporal Principles: users, data, computing resources, phenomena

Discussions/Future work

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• Visual Analytics functions & Cloud Broker

CloudSleuth: Global Provider View & CDN Performance Analyzer

Discussions/Future work

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Discussion Questions1. What challenges the cloud computing selection from cloud consumers’

point of view?2. What are the major factors that impact cloud computing selection?3. Why application features and requirements are important to cloud

computing selection?4. In the IaaS and PaaS level cloud services, what items are usually charged

money for tenancy? Which ones has relative stable amount and which ones are more mutable?

5. What kinds of measurement are included in cloud platform capacity provisioning?

6. What factors usually impact the total cost for employing Virtual Machine?

7. What are the basic principles for selecting a cloud services?8. Are cloud storage types and Geo-location of cloud infrastructure

important in cloud selection? Why? 33


• Andrzejak, A., Kondo, D. and Yi, S., 2010. Decision Model for Cloud Computing under SLA Constraints. In 18th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems.257-266.

• Badger, L., Grance, T., Patt-Corner, R., Voas, J., 2012. Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations. NIST Special Publication 800-146.

• Calheiros, R.N., Ranjan, R., Beloglazov, A., Rose, C. and Buyya, R., 2011. CloudSim: a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environments and evaluation of resource provisioning algorithms. Software: Practice and Experience, 41(1), 23-50.

• CSMIC, 2011. Service Measurement Index (Version 1.0). Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley, Moffett Field, CA, USA. http://csmic.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/SMI-Overview-110913_v1F1.pdf

• Goscinski, A. and Brock, M., 2010. Toward dynamic and attribute based publication, discovery and selection for cloud computing. Future Generation Computer Systems, 26(2010), 947-970.

• Jansen, W. and Grance, T., 2011. Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing. NIST Special Publication 800-144.

• Li, X., Li, Y., Liu, T., Qiu, J. and Wang, F., 2009. The Method and Tool of Cost Analysis for Cloud Computing. 2009 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, 93-100.

• Martens, B., Teuteberg, F., and Gräuler, M., 2011. Design and implementation of a community platform for the evaluation and selection of cloud computing services: a market analysis. ECIS 2011 Proceedings. http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2011/215

• NIST, 2012.NIST Cloud Computing Reference Architecture Cloud Service Metrics Description (Draft). http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/pub/CloudComputing/RATax_CloudMetrics/RATAX-CloudServiceMetricsDescription-DRAFT-v1.1.pdf

• Repschläger, J., Wind, S., Zarnekow, R., and Turowski, K., 2011. Developing a Cloud Provider Selection Model. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures (EMISA 2011), Hamburg, Germany, September 22-23, 2011.

• Stantchev, V., 2009. Performance Evaluation of Cloud Computing Offerings. In Third International Conference on Advanced Engineering Computing and Applications in Sciences, 187-192.

References

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http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/pub/CloudComputing/RATax_CloudMetrics/RATAX-CloudServiceMetricsDescription-DRAFT-v1.1.pdf

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/pub/CloudComputing/RATax_CloudMetrics/RATAX-CloudServiceMetricsDescription-DRAFT-v1.1.pdf

Documents

Chapter 6 How to choose cloud services: towards a cloud computing cost model?