Publications

Reducing allocation errors in network testbeds

Abstract

Network testbeds have become widely used in computer science, both for evaluation of research technologies and for hands-on teaching. This can naturally lead to oversubscription and resource allocation failures, as limited testbed resources cannot meet the increasing demand.
This paper examines the causes of resource allocation failures on DeterLab testbed and finds three main culprits that create perceived resource oversubscription, even when available nodes exist: (1) overuse of mapping constraints by users, (2) testbed software errors and (3) suboptimal resource allocation. We propose solutions that could resolve these issues and reduce allocation failures to 57.3% of the baseline. In the remaining cases, real resource oversubscription occurs. We examine testbed usage patterns and show that a small fraction of unfair projects starve others for resources under the current first-come-first-served allocation …

Date
November 14, 2012
Authors
Jelena Mirkovic, Hao Shi, Alefiya Hussain
Book
Proceedings of the 2012 Internet Measurement Conference
Pages
495-508