The microservice architecture structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled and distributed services. Since application workloads usually change over time, the number of replicas per microservice should be accordingly scaled at run-time. The most widely adopted scaling policy relies on statically defined thresholds, expressed in terms of system-oriented metrics. This policy might not be well-suited to scale multi-component and latency-sensitive applications, which express requirements in terms of response time. In this paper, we present a two-layered hierarchical solution for controlling the elasticity of microservice-based applications. The higher-level controller estimates the microservice contribution to the application performance, and informs the lower-level components. The latter accordingly scale the single microservices using a dynamic threshold-based policy. So, we propose MB Threshold and QL Threshold, two policies that employ respectively model-based and model-free reinforcement learning approaches to learn threshold update strategies. These policies can compute different thresholds for the different application components, according to the desired deployment objectives. A wide set of simulation results shows the benefits and flexibility of the proposed solution, emphasizing the advantages of using dynamic thresholds over the most adopted policy that uses static thresholds.

Rossi, F., Cardellini, V., LO PRESTI, F. (2020). Self-adaptive Threshold-based Policy for Microservices Elasticity. In 2020 28th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS) (pp.1-8). IEEE Computer Society [10.1109/MASCOTS50786.2020.9285951].

Self-adaptive Threshold-based Policy for Microservices Elasticity

Cardellini Valeria;Lo Presti Francesco
2020-11-01

Abstract

The microservice architecture structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled and distributed services. Since application workloads usually change over time, the number of replicas per microservice should be accordingly scaled at run-time. The most widely adopted scaling policy relies on statically defined thresholds, expressed in terms of system-oriented metrics. This policy might not be well-suited to scale multi-component and latency-sensitive applications, which express requirements in terms of response time. In this paper, we present a two-layered hierarchical solution for controlling the elasticity of microservice-based applications. The higher-level controller estimates the microservice contribution to the application performance, and informs the lower-level components. The latter accordingly scale the single microservices using a dynamic threshold-based policy. So, we propose MB Threshold and QL Threshold, two policies that employ respectively model-based and model-free reinforcement learning approaches to learn threshold update strategies. These policies can compute different thresholds for the different application components, according to the desired deployment objectives. A wide set of simulation results shows the benefits and flexibility of the proposed solution, emphasizing the advantages of using dynamic thresholds over the most adopted policy that uses static thresholds.
28th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS 2020)
2020
Rilevanza internazionale
contributo
nov-2020
Settore ING-INF/05 - SISTEMI DI ELABORAZIONE DELLE INFORMAZIONI
English
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9285951
Intervento a convegno
Rossi, F., Cardellini, V., LO PRESTI, F. (2020). Self-adaptive Threshold-based Policy for Microservices Elasticity. In 2020 28th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS) (pp.1-8). IEEE Computer Society [10.1109/MASCOTS50786.2020.9285951].
Rossi, F; Cardellini, V; LO PRESTI, F
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2108/265637
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