RAS: Request Assignment Simulator for Cloud-Based Applications

Applications deployed in cloud receive a huge volume of requests from geographically distributed users whose satisfaction with the cloud service is directly proportional to the efficiency with which the requests are handled. Assignment of user requests based on appropriate load balancing principles significantly improves the performance of such cloud-based applications. To study the behavior of such systems, there is a need for simulation tools that will help the designer to set a test bed and evaluate the performance of the system by experimenting with different load balancing principles. In this paper, a novel architecture for cloud called Request Assignment Simulator (RAS) is proposed. It is a customizable, visual tool that simulates the request assignment process based on load balancing principles with a set of parameters that impact resource utilization. This simulator will help to ascertain the best possible resource allocation technique by facilitating the designer to apply and test different load balancing principles for a given scenario.