New Study Reveals Algorithms that Allows Calculation for Cloud Computing

While cloud computing has become the phenomenon for major companies, customer service still remains the priority for a number of businesses. Inclining to which, a new research has been revealed recently to for the cloud computing service providers to establish pricing and allocate resources.

According to the researchers in University at Buffalo School of Management, they have developed a new algorithm and provided practical formulas that companies like Amazon, Google or VMWare can use to determine the resources necessary to provide a certain level of service to their customers — and what to charge for it in their service-level agreements (SLA). In addition, any customer who uses cloud computing services can use the algorithm to help negotiate on pricing.

“As computing resources continue to shift to the cloud, customers are demanding near-constant access to their files and software, posing a significant challenge to service providers,” says study co-author Sanjukta Das Smith, PhD, associate professor of management science and systems in the UB School of Management.

She further added, “A company can feed information about their data center into our algorithm, and out will come policy definitions and specific prescriptions on how to allocate resources and set pricing, all tailor-made to their environment.”

The researchers conducted extensive computational studies using real-world server log data to validate and supplement their analytical work. “Better understanding of costs is crucial for effective resource provisioning,” says Smith. “Through our research, providers can fine-tune resources for each client, rather than the current strategy of relying on ‘guesstimates.’”

The study was a collaboration between many scholars from UB School of Management. Smith joined together with Chunming Qiao, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair of the UB Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Ram Ramesh, PhD, professor of management science and systems in the UB School of Management; and Shuai Yuan, PhD candidate in the UB School of Management.

The study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.