Incentive-aware virtual machine scheduling in cloud computing

As cloud computing is a market-oriented utility, optimal virtual machine (VM) scheduling in cloud computing should take into account the incentives for both cloud users and the cloud provider. However, most of existing studies on VM scheduling only consider the incentive for one party, i.e., either the cloud users or the cloud provider. Very few related studies consider the incentives for both parties, in which the cost, one of the most attractive incentives for cloud users, is not well addressed. In this paper, we investigate the problem of VM scheduling in cloud computing by optimizing the incentives for both parties. The problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization model, i.e., maximizing the successful execution rate of VM requests and minimizing the combined cost (incentives for cloud users), and minimizing the fairness deviation of profits (incentive for the cloud provider). The proposed multi-objective optimization model can offer sufficient incentives for the two parties to stay and play in the cloud and keep the cloud system sustainable. A heuristic-based scheduling algorithm, called cost-greedy dynamic price scheduling, is then developed to optimize the incentives for both parties. Experimental results show that, compared with some popular algorithms, the developed algorithm can achieve higher successful execution rate, lower execution cost, smaller fairness deviation and most important, higher degree of user satisfaction in most cases.