Achieving Performance and Availability Guarantees with Spot Instances

Abstract—In the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing market, spot instances refer to virtual servers that are rented via an auction. Spot instances allow IaaS providers to sell spare capacity while enabling IaaS users to acquire virtual servers at a lower pricer than the regular market price (also called “on demand” price). Users bid for spot instances at their chosen limit price. Based on the bids and the available capacity, the IaaS provider sets a clearing price. A bidder acquires their requested spot instances if their bid is above the clearing price. However, these spot instances may be terminated by the IaaS provider impromptu if the auction’s clearing price goes above the user’s limit price. In this context, this paper addresses the following question: Can spot instances be used to run paid web services while achieving performance and availability guarantees? The paper examines the problem faced by a Software-asa-Service (SaaS) provider who rents spot ins...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: HPCC
• Authors: Michele Mazzucco, Marlon Dumas
• Keywords: Allocation Policies, Auction Spot, Distributed And Parallel Computing, HPCC 2011, Service Transactions