Quadratic Penalty Function for IaaS Resource Availability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud service providers face challenges in maintaining availability and compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) during resource upgrades in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environments, due to dependencies, incompatibilities, and dynamic workload changes, which can lead to service outages and penalties for unavailability, with existing penalty metrics failing to adequately motivate service availability.
Innovation Solution
A method using a quadratic proportional penalty function to calculate and apply penalties for unavailability events during IaaS resource upgrades, iteratively detecting changes in expected and provided resources, and applying penalties based on the square of the difference in resources unavailable simultaneously, to incentivize higher availability and minimize service disruptions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a linear proportional penalty is applied to SLA violations, then the penalty calculation is simple, but it does not adequately motivate service availability because it treats simultaneous resource unavailability the same as sequential unavailability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the penalty calculation parameter from linear proportionality to quadratic proportionality. The penalty is calculated as the square of the number of unavailable resources multiplied by the unavailability duration and a penalty rate constant. This parameter change transforms the penalty function to heavily penalize simultaneous resource unavailability, thereby motivating better service availability while maintaining computational simplicity.
2Productivity
If resources are upgraded simultaneously to improve efficiency, then upgrade time is reduced, but service availability deteriorates due to increased risk of simultaneous unavailability
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the quadratic penalty calculation provides financial feedback to the cloud service provider about the impact of upgrade strategies on service availability. This feedback loop allows the provider to adjust upgrade strategies to balance efficiency and availability, as the quadratic penalty heavily penalizes simultaneous unavailability events.
3Reliability
If autoscaling is enabled during upgrades to maintain capacity, then service availability is maintained, but upgrade process complexity increases due to coordination requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the penalty calculation to quadratic proportionality, which fundamentally alters the economic parameters of the upgrade decision. This parameter change makes simultaneous unavailability so costly that it incentivizes simpler upgrade strategies or better-coordinated autoscaling, effectively using economic levers to manage complexity rather than directly increasing system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a method for applying a penalty to a cloud service provider, while upgrading resources in a system providing infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), for improved maintenance of resources according to a service level agreement (SLA), comprising iteratively: detecting a change in a number of expected resources or a number of provided resources; and upon determining that a previous unavailability event was ongoing, calculating the penalty for the previous unavailability event using a quadratic proportional function. The method also comprises computing a total penalty as the sum of the penalties for each previous unavailability event; and applying the total penalty to the cloud service provider of the IaaS. There is provided a method and network node for upgrading resources in a system based on dependencies and service level agreement (SLA) requirement including a penalty for outage of the resources, wherein calculating the penalty comprises using the quadratic proportional function.