Seminar - Summer 2014

Automatic Memory Control of Multiple Virtual Machines on a Consolidated Server

When: Monday, June 16, 2014
Where: PGH 563
Time: 11:00 AM

Speaker: Prof. Wei-Zhe Zhang, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

Host: Prof. Albert Cheng

Through virtualization, multiple virtual machines can coexist and operate on one physical machine. When virtual machines (VMs) complete for memory, the performance of applications deteriorate, especially those of memory-intensive applications. In this study, we aim to optimize memory control techniques using a balloon driver for server consolidation. Our contribution is three-fold: (1) We design and implement a control system for automatic for automatic memory based on a Xen balloon driver. To avoid interference with VM monitor operation, our system works in user mode; thus, the system is easily applied in practice. (2) We design an adaptive global-scheduling algorithm to regulate memory. This algorithm is based on a dynamic baseline, which can adjust memory allocation flexibly according to the memory used by the VMs. (3) We evaluate our optimized solution in a real environment with ten VMs and well-known benchmarks (DaCapo and Phoronix test suites). Experiments confirm that our system can improve the performance of memory-intensive and input/output applications by up to 400% and 200%, respectively. This toolkit for automatic memory control has been released for free download as GNU General Public License v3 software.

Bio:

Dr. Wei-Zhe Zhang is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA. He is also a Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor in the School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He received is B.Eng, M.Eng, and Ph.D. degree of Engineering in computer science and technology in 1999, 2001, and 2006 respectively form Harbin Institute of Technology. He has been a visiting scholar at the Department of Computer Science, University of Houston (UH), USA, from Aug. 2005 to Feb. 2006.

He is the Associate Editor or Editorial Board of International Journal of Grid and Distributed Computing (IJGDC), International Journal of Future Generation Communication and Networking (IJFGCN), International Journal of Hybrid Information Technology (IJHIT), International Journal of Security and Its Applications (IJSIA), International Journal of Grid and High Performance Computing (IJGHPC). He serves as the Guest Editor of International Journal of Grid and Distributed Computing (IJGDC). He serves as the Session Chair of the 2013 International Conference on Computing and Applications (CCA 2013), the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (Cluster 2012), and the 7th IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing (NPC 2010). He has serves as PC member for a number of conferences, e.g., the Second International Workshop on Real Time and Embedded Systems, the IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing (NPC 2011 and NPC 2012). He also serves as a peer reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Systems, Journal of Information Science and Engineering, International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making.

Dr. Zhang has published around 100 scientific papers in the well-established journals including Computing, Multimedia Tools and Applications, Studies in Informatics and Control, Science in China (Series F), IEICE Transaction on Information and Systems, and in the reputable conference such as IEEE Cluster, IEEE IPDPS, IEEE ICPADS, ACM CIKM, IFIP NPC etc. He conducts research in high performance computing, parallel and distributed system, cloud computing, real-time computing and computer network & security. He is a member of the IEEE, ACM, IEICE, and CCF (China Computer Federation).