Joint request mapping and response routing for geo-distributed cloud services

Many cloud services are running on geographically distributed datacenters for better reliability and performance. We consider the emerging problem of joint request mapping and response routing with distributed datacenters in this paper. We formulate the problem as a general workload management optimization. A utility function is used to capture various performance goals, and the location diversity of electricity and bandwidth costs are realistically modeled. To solve the large-scale optimization, we develop a distributed algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Following a decomposition-coordination approach, our algorithm allows for a parallel implementation in a datacenter where each server solves a small sub-problem. The solutions are coordinated to find an optimal solution to the global problem. Our algorithm converges to near optimum within tens of iterations, and is insensitive to step sizes. We empirically evaluate our algorithm based on real-world workload traces and latency measurements, and demonstrate its effectiveness compared to conventional methods. © 2013 IEEE.