Nash equilibrium based replacement of virtual machines for efficient utilization of cloud data centers

Workload uncertainty has been increased with the integration of the Internet of Things to the computing grid i.e. edge computing and cloud data centers. Therefore, efficient resource utilization in cloud data centers become more challenging. Dynamic consolidation of virtual machines on optimal number of processing machines can increase the efficiency of resource utilization in cloud data centers. This process requires the migration of virtual machines from the under-utilized and over-utilized processing machines to other suitable machines. In this work, the problem of efficient replacement of virtual machines is solved using a game theory based well known technique, Nash Equilibrium (NE). We designed a nash equilibrium based dual on two players, over-load manager and under-load manager, to deduce the dominant strategy profiles for various scenarios during consolidation cycles. Dominant strategy profile is the set of strategies where every player has no incentive in deviation, thus leading to equilibrium position. A virtual machines redeployment algorithm, Nash Equilibrium based Virtual Machines Replacement (NE-VMR), has been proposed on the basis of the dominant strategy profiles for efficient consolidation. Experiment results show that NE-VMR is a more efficient server consolidation technique, saved 30% energy and improved 35% quality of service as compared to baselines.