Resource management in software as a service using the knapsack problem model

This paper proposes a resource allocation model for "Software as a Service" systems that maximizes the service provider's revenues and the resource utilization under a heavy load. Employing the elasticity of virtualized infrastructures, the proposed model dictates that system resources must be fully exploited by incoming jobs, even if they do not satisfy their requirements completely. This yields a higher Service Level Agreement violation probability, which is mitigated by the assignment of more resources when these become available. The problem is deduced to the Fractional Knapsack problem and the heuristic solution is implemented in the frame of a SOA environment. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.