An Introduction to Monitoring asa Service for Effective Cloud

Management

Abstract: In the New era of cloudcomputing and service based marketmonitoring state of a system or anapplication is necessary to get maximumbenefit of the power of asystem.Monitoring state of system meanscontinuous checking the over-allfunctionality under various permutationsand combinations of load considering allthe factors that can harm performance ofsystem. Monitoring can be provided as aservice to clients through cloudcomputing. This will be beneficial forboth the client and the providers asclient will be aware of the over-allperformance of system and which may helpconsumers to visualize further needs ofimprovement and providers may get anoption for increasing revenues as wellas their system knowledge.

There are few technical glitches thatneed to be considered. These are asfollows-[1]

1. As cloud computing requirement forservice it provide vary time totime. We need such monitoring systemthat is capable of adjusting to suchrequirement moderations. More-overit should also provide multi-userfunctionality such that system is

viewed by every user as a dedicatedsystem for that user.

2. As cloud computing is distributed ata massive stretch we need monitoringsystems that could give the utmostcorrect view of a system at anyinstance of time. As a computingsystem may be stretched continent-wise there will be communicationsystem involved for end-to-endinformation exchange. Our monitoringsystem should be such that canprovide consistent report ofcomputing system at all the timewith 100% accuracy otherwise we willnever get appropriate data.

3. As we are planning to monitorsystems implemented over manycontinents we will have tremendousamount of monitored data. We needsuch techniques that could separateuseful data and lead to expectedresults. Data handling is essentialfor monitoring. We also need tofocus on the fact that unused andunimportant data gets over-writtenby useful or new data. This willhelp in better utilization ofstorage space.

Piyush SaxenaM.Tech (CS&E)

ASET,Amity University

Noida (U.P.), Indiapiyushisgenius@gmai

Praveen KumarAssistant Professor

ASETAmity University

Noida (U.P.), Indiapkumar3@amity.edu

Aniket MaithaniB.Tech (CS&E)

ASET,Amity University

Noida (U.P.), Indiamaithani.aniket@gma

Asish SrivastavaAmity School ofEngineering &Technology,

Amity UniversityNoida (U.P.), Indiaashishshrivastava9

There are many techniques that tackleour technical problems but we need toconsider short-comings of existingtechniques so that we could give bettersolutions for achieving goals ofmonitoring i.e. reliability,scalability, utility, efficiency andaccuracy.

Cloud computing allows consumers andbusinesses to use application withoutinstallation and access their personalfiles at any computer with internetaccess. Speed up the calculations andprocesses. Provide multi tenancyfeatures. Cloud Computing is a Computingin which services and software areprovided over the Internet (“cloud”)which is very cheap and affordable.Cloud computing is on demand accessto virtualized IT resources that arehoused outside of your own datacentre, shared by other simple to use,paid for via monthly subscription whichis very low in cost, and accessed overthe web with many features in it.Monitoring as a Service is a businessmodel in which a large company rentsspace in their storage infrastructure toanother company or individual. The keyadvantage to Cloud setup in theenterprise is in cost savings -- inpersonnel, in hardware and in physicalstorage space.[2] The Cloud provideragrees to rent storage space on a cost-per-gigabyte-stored and cost-per-data-transfer basis and the company's datawould be automatically transferred atthe specified time over the storageprovider's proprietary wide area network(WAN) or the Internet. If the company'sdata ever became corrupt or got lost,the network administrator could contactthe cloud service provider and request acopy of the data.

Index Terms: Virtualized IT Resources,MaaS, cloud computing, Cloud AppMonitoring

I.INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing is known as Internetbased computing, with pooledresources, software and knowhow isprovided to computers and otherdevices. Cloud Computing is aComputing in which services andsoftware are provided over theInternet (“cloud”) which is verycheap and affordable.

Cloud computing is a technology thatuses the internet and central remoteservers to maintain data andapplications. Cloud computing assentconsumers and businesses to harnessapplications without installationand admittance their personal filesat any computer with internetaccess. Example of cloud computingis Yahoo mail or Gmail etc. Youdon’t need software or a server toharness them. The server and emailmanagement software is all on thecloud (internet) and is totallymanaged by the cloud serviceprovider Yahoo, Google etc. The enduser gets to harness the softwarealone and delight the benefits.Cloud computing is on demand accessto virtualized IT resources that arehoused outside of your own datacentre, shared by others, simple touse, paid for via monthlysubscription which is very low incost, and accessed over the web withmany features in it.

Fig 1. Types of Cloud Services

There are three main cloud storagemodels:[4]

1. Public cloud storageservices, that provides amulti-tenant storageenvironment that’s mostsuitable for unstructureddata.

2. Private cloud storageservices provide a dedicatedenvironment protected behindan organization’s firewall.Appropriate for users whoneed customization and morecontrol over their data.

3. Hybrid cloud storage is acombination of the other twomodels that includes at leastone private cloud and onepublic cloud infrastructure.

By making data accessible in thecloud, it can be more easily andubiquitously accessed, often at muchlower cost, increasing its value byenabling opportunities for enhancedcollaboration, integration, andanalysis on a shared commonplatform.

The basic concept of cloud computingis using software via the Internetinstead of installing it ontopersonal computer. From this cloud,one can find programs that he/shewants to utilize. Through webbrowser anyone can access programsfrom cloud.

II. CLOUD SERVICES

Business applications like SAP,Microsoft, and Oracle comprisealways complicated and high-priced.They require a data centre withoffice space, power, cooling,networks, servers, and memory etc.And a team of experts to install,configure, and run them. And acomplicated software stack. Itmultiplies the headaches when thistakes place across hundreds orthousand of apps, it’s simple to seewhy the major companies with thebest IT departments isn’t gettingthe applications they need.

By cloud computing and IT as aService (ITaaS) could bring thetotal costs down. It would reducethe need for advanced hardware onthe client side. One wouldn't needto buy the fastest computer with themost memory, because the cloudsystem would obtain concern of thoseneeds.[3]IT as a service can be of 4

types:-1.) Infrastructure as a

Service (IaaS)2.) Platform as a Service

(PaaS)3.) Software as a Service

(StaaS)

4.) Storage as a Service(StaaS)

5.) Monitoring as a Service(MaaS)

Fig 2. Implementation in Cloud

Description of the Services inDetail:1) Infrastructure as a Service:

IPs manages a large set of computingresources, such as sorting andhanding out capacity. Duringvirtualization, they are capable tosplit, allocate and dynamicallyresize these assets to build ad-hocsystems as demanded by clientele.They install the software stacksthat run their services. IaaS is aprovision model in which anorganization outsources theequipment used to maintainoperations, together with storage,hardware, servers and networkingelements. The service provider ownsthe appliance and is responsible forhousing, running and maintaining it.Example: go grid etc.2) Platform as a Service: Cloud

systems can offer an additionalabstraction level: instead ofsupplying a virtualizedinfrastructure, they can offer the

software platform where systems runon. The amount of the hardwareresources demanded by the executionof the services is clear as crystal.This is denoted as Platform as aService (PaaS). Example: Google AppsEngine etc.3) Storage as a Service: [3]

Commonly known as Storage as aService (StaaS), it facilitatescloud applications to scale beyondtheir limited servers. StaaS allowsusers to store their data at remotedisks and access them anytime fromany situate. Cloud storage systemsare expected to gather severalrigorous requirements formaintaining users’ data andinformation, with highaccessibility, reliability,performance, duplication and dataconsistency; but because of theconflicting nature of these needs,no one system implements all of themtogether.4) Software as a Service: Finally,

there are services of potentialinterest to a wide variety of usershosted in Cloud systems. SometimesSaaS suggested as "software ondemand". It is software that isdeployed to run over the internet orbehind a firewall on a local areanetwork or personal computer SaaShas become a common model for manybusiness applications withaccounting, association, customerrelationship management (CRM),enterprise resource planning (ERP),invoicing, human resource management(HRM), content management (CM) and

service desk management. Example:Salesforce.com etc.

Fig 3. Overview of a cloud

Some Characteristics of the CloudSystem are:1.) Data Durability and

Reliability - It stands that onecan fully trust and rely on thesekinds of services.

2.) Security -”due to vergency ofdata”...There is a little amountof chance to hack and occurringsome problems. In case there isany problem it can be resolvedimmediately.

3.) Privacy -There is nointerconnection between twoclients. It provides username andpassword which kept safe and theclients can change the passwordanytime. (If they doubt thattheir password has beenbreached).

4.) Reduced Redundancy storage -Reduces the redundant data storedand thus gives an excellentutilization of storage.

Fig 4. Phases of services in cloud

1.) Backup, Archiving and Disaster Recovery – Backups the completedata of data centres on manyservers so as to keep up adisaster recovery logs and datafor in case something happens.This is ideal for moving largequantities of data for periodicbackups, or rapidly retrievingdata for disaster recoveryscenarios.

Some Advantages of using CloudComputing Systems:-1.) Low use of power supply as the

power used to transact multipleapps now is used for a single appwhich detract power supply.

2.) Detract the need of highlevels of cooling as only one appneeds to run as compared tomultiple apps.

Bandwidth problem-it relates tonetworks in which there is nojamming or marching in networksignal basically due to centralizedserver.[2]

III. THE NEW SERVICE - MONITORING ASA SERVICE

Monitoring as a Service or MAAS isstill one of the unexplored andnewly discovered sector in the cloudcomputing environment. Though theconcept of MAAS in the cloudinfrastructure is fresh still, itholds the importance in the presentfuture. With the introduction ofIaaS, PaaS services it is morelikely that with the increasingdependency on these services,monitoring tool will be required toinspect the flow of information andinfrastructure as a whole. Business& Information goes hand in hand,developing potential risk for lossof information due to the collapseof infrastructre, attacks, serverdowntime etc.[4][5] Thus MaaS willgive an alternative to handle suchsituations more effectively, ratherthan investing whole lot of moneyand resources in manual tools andadmins. MaaS is an effective way tobridge the divide which still existbetween orthodox IT practices andCloud infrastructure.

The potential use of MaaS wouldensure 1. Server Uptime 2. Will make error reporting and

handling easier. 3. Utilisation of the resources to

the fullest extent possible4. Automated system allows greater

throughput

5. Cheaper than the existingconventional human basedmonitoring service

6. Easy for consumer to monitor thesituation of his application onthe go.

Now the question arises Why MaaS?

Much notice needs to be given to theinquiry of how to supervise all thecloud services, specially in thecase where the service might becombined with applications runningin the data center.

The idea of a monitoring tool thatis delivered as a service so thatone can log onto the central webbased instrument panel which ishosted by the vendor of themonitoring service and see andcontrol that all is going on withall of the applications no matterwhere they are located.

IV. OBJECTIVES OF MONITORING ASA SERVICE

As per recent trends that hasshifted from the traditional ITStorage system, to cloud, ensuresbetter performance and give the enduser or even the companies betterresource utilisation. Instead ofspending their money and resourceson the hardware, the virtualisationfactor does the trick for theseorganisation, because as per theirrequirement they can increase anddecrease their capacity. Monitoringsystem is therefore require to alertthe cloud user about the currentstate of their infrastructure. AlsoMaaS would also deal with thepredictive analysis of the resourceutilisation on the cloud server.[6]

Also we need to extend the conceptof MaaS for hetrogenous system also,because we know that companiesgenerally shift their services ontocloud but the crucial data stillruns on their server. So since MaaSis monitoring is a service, we mustalso look into the aspect ofcombining and monitoring these twoseparate system, which ultimatelyact for one common goal, that isproviding service to the user.

By 2020, most people won't do theirwork with software running on ageneral-purpose PC. Instead, theywill work on Internet-basedapplications such as Google Docs,and in applications run from smartphones. Aspiring applicationdevelopers will develop forSmartphone vendors and companiesthat provide Internet-basedapplications, because mostinnovative work will be done inthat domain, instead of designingapplications that run on a PCoperating system."

Thus because of the following growthrate, and more and more applicationbeing ported to the cloud it istherefore necessary to have ainsight look into the monitoringservice. Because traction caused inanyone of the potential service,would ultimately affect the systemof the cloud server as a whole.Though cloud does provide somelevels of segregation, still it isnot yet very robust and versatile.Since cloud are originally designedfor optimum storage solution, MaaSwould keep a counter check on theirperformance. Also the cross domain,monitoring issue covered in theprevious section can be easiltytackled by linking these two domains

using MaaS. For example there shouldbe a separate monitoring of datawith respect to the service thatuses it.

MaaS can alert technical staff ofthe problem, allowing them to beginremediation processes before outagesaffect business processes, end-users, or customers.

VI. OBJECTIVES AND CHALLENGES OFMONITORING AS A SERVICE

Top Challenges in a CloudSystem[7]

1.) Lack of ability to recognize applicationsthat can be faultlessly moved to thecloud

Its an important decision made bythe organization about applicationsthat should be moved to the cloudenvironment by making properestimations and calculation about ITand business benefits that they canaccomplish from this action. It isalso an important part to do thefeasibility study as to if the cloudinfrastructure they are using willbe able to support applications thatare being transferred to the cloud.

2.) Lack of ability to make erudite decisionsabout adding or terminating cloudresources

Organizations need to havecapability of monitoring usage ofthe cloud resources that would alertthem about the need of additionalresources and about applications forwhich these additional resources areneeded. These monitoringcapabilities include tools formonitoring CPU usage per computing

resource, ratios between systemsactivity and user activity, and CPUusage from specific job tasks.

3.) Lack of ability to monitor efficiency ofapplications that use a hybrid cloud system

Organizations sometimes use a hybridmodel for deploying cloud computing,which presents end-userorganizations with the challenge ofmonitoring usage of resources thatare hosted and managed bothexternally and internally and arebeing used by the same application.

4.) Improving scalability of theinfrastructure that causes heterogeneousenvironments which are even hard to manage

Improving scalability creates a newsituation that is quite compound tomonitor and deal with. Thus,traditional IT management toolscreate the challenge of striking abalance between scalability andflexibility of computing resourcesand ease of management andvisibility into performance of theIT services.

Requirements of the solution[8]1.) Tools for analysing the impactof rules for handing over cloudresources on basis of end-userexperience

2.) Ability to compare cloud servicedelivery to performance of theinternal environment

3.) An independent tool formonitoring/validating performance ofa heterogeneous set of applicationsin the cloud

4.) Ability to monitor cloudapplications alongside with internalIT systems

VII. BENEFITS, RECOMENDATION OFACTIONS AND IMPLIMENTED

PRODUCT/SOLUTION

Benefits

Prevention and resolution ofperformance issues in a timelymanner.

Ability to support changes inbusiness demand.

Ability to optimize spendingdecisions.

Recommendations for action

In order to have full visibilityinto the performance of cloudservices, organizations shouldconsider taking the followingactions:[9][10]• Deploy independent tools formonitoring and validating theperformance of cloud services

• Deploy tools for measuring theimpact of rules for assigningcloud resources based on qualityof end-user experience

• Develop the ability to comparecloud service delivery toperformance of the internalenvironment

• Make sure your monitoring toolsupports a hybrid deploymentarchitecture.

Fig 6: Monitoring as a Service

Implemented Solution

One such brilliant technique isREMO, a resource aware monitoringsystem. REMO manages the resourceutilization among variousdatacenters. It keeps an eye onnetwork and helps to keep load onall CPU moderate lading to betterCPU utilization. But still it couldprovide 35-45% error reduction.

Another technique is CRYSTALBALL, itis a monitoring system that works ondatacenters of distributed systemand keeps updating accuracy updatesbased on analysis of failuresobserved. It improves monitoringcapabilities.

IX. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

This paper describes the model forthe Monitoring as a Service and it'sfuture implication in the nearfuture.The best part of the cloud is

that it automatically scales thevirutalization level as per therequirement and the availableinfrastructure, similarly MaaS as awhole will be able to manage thearising security concerns and otherissues, and the inbuilt algorithmwill take the required action insuch crisis.

The scope for future work willinclude, MaaS for differenthetrogenous systems, for examplecompanies keep their data on theirown servers where as application oncloud, so we need a bridge and setof protocols to manage thisinconsistency on a far wide scalelevel. [12] Moreover, betteralgorithms to tackle the issues androbustness of the system will be onearea which can be specifically beworked upon.

There is a lot that can be done withMaaS.

X. REFERENCES

[1] B. Raghavan, K. V. Vishwanath, S.Ramabhadran, K. Yocum, and A. C.Snoeren,“Cloud control with distributed ratelimiting,” in SIGCOMM,2007, pp. 337–348.

[2] Bernd Harzog, “Monitoring as aService”, Virtualization practices 2012

[3] Piyush Saxena, Satyajit Padhy,Praveen Kumar 2013. Use of storage as aservice for online operating system inCloud Computing, International Conferencon Telecom and Networks

[4] L. Raschid, H.-F. Wen, A. Gal, andV. Zadorozhny, “Monitoring theperformance of wide area applicationsusing latency profiles,” in WWW’03.

[5] N. Jain, P. Mahajan, D. Kit, P.Yalagandula, M. Dahlin, and Y. Zhang,

“Network imprecision: A new consistencymetric for scalable monitoring,” inOSDI, 2008, pp. 87–102.

[6] Amazon, “Ec2 auto-scaling,”http://aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/.

[7] M. Dilman and D. Raz, “Efficientreactive monitoring,” in INFOCOM, 2001,pp. 1012–1019.

[8] R. Keralapura, G. Cormode, and J.Ramamirtham, “Communicationefficientdistributed monitoring of thresholdcounts,” in SIGMOD, 2006.

[9] S. Meng, T. Wang, and L. Liu,“Monitoring continuous state violationin datacenters: Exploring the timedimension,” in ICDE, 2010, pp. 968–979.

[10] S. Meng, A. Iyengar, I. Rouvellou,L. Liu, K. Lee, B. Palanisamy, and Y.Tang, “Reliable state monitoring incloud datacenters,” in IEEE Cloud, 2012.

[11] P. Yalagandula and M. Dahlin, “Ascalable distributed informationmanagement system,” in SIGCOMM04, pp.379–390.

[12] S. Meng, S. R. Kashyap, C.Venkatramani, and L. Liu, “Remo:Resourceaware application statemonitoring for large-scale distributedsystems,” in ICDCS, 2009, pp. 248–255.