Cost function based event triggered Model Predictive Controllers application to Big Data Cloud services

International audience; High rate cluster reconfigurations is a costly issue in Big Data Cloud services. Current control solutions manage to scale the cluster according to the workload, however they do not try to minimize the number of system reconfigurations. Event-based control is known to reduce the number of control updates typically by waiting for the system states to degrade below a given threshold before reacting. However, computer science systems often have exogenous inputs (such as clients connections) with delayed impacts that can enable to anticipate states degradation. In this paper, a novel event-triggered approach is proposed. This triggering mechanism relies on a Model Predictive Controller and is defined upon the value of the optimal cost function instead of the state or output error. This controller reduces the number of control changes, in the normal operation mode, through constraints in the MPC formulation but also assures a very reactive behavior to changes of exogenous inputs. This novel control approach is evaluated using a model validated on a real Big Data system. The controller efficiently scales the cluster according to specifications, meanwhile reducing its reconfigurations.