IT Service Management in the Cloud Era

This course is sponsored by the EU-project RELATE. RELATE is funded by the European Commission under FP7 PEOPLE.

Speakers:

Dr. François Habryn, Senior Consultant - IT Strategy and Optimization, IBM Switzerland - Global Technology Services, Email: francois habryn does-not-exist.ch ibm com

Dr. Vasilios Andrikopoulos, Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Architecture of Application Systems, University of Stuttgart, Email: vasilios.andrikopoulos∂iaas.uni-stuttgart.de

Dipl.-Inform. Nikolaus Huber, Doctoral Researcher, Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Email: nikolaus.huber∂kit.edu


The course will cover the following three topics:

Title: Cloud technology: beyond the hype, a cornerstone for transforming the IT department and achieving IT service management. 

Abstract: Even though cloud services are based on various technological innovations, its adoption results in an organizational transformation, thereby changing the way computing resources are produced and consumed. During this session, we will discuss the concept of cloud services and IT service management and review how cloud adoption helps the organization increase its IT service management maturity and allows the IT department become an enabler of the business strategy. This presentation will be illustrated with concrete examples inspired from various consulting engagements.

Title: "Multi-tenancy in the era of PaaS solutions"

Abstract: In this session, we discuss the effect of multi-tenancy on different Cloud delivery models and focus in particular on the PaaS model. We identify the challenges and solutions for developing both platform components and applications in Platforms offered on the Cloud. Issues covering resource sharing, access control, administration and management, and automatic deployment considering multi-tenancy are discussed for these purposes.

Title: Online workload forecasting and performance prediction for elastic capacity management in cloud environments

Abstract: The adoption of cloud computing promises a number of benefits such as increased flexibility, better energy efficiency and lower operating costs for IT systems. However, highly variable workloads make it challenging to provide quality-of-service guarantees while at the same time ensuring efficient resource utilization. To avoid violations of service-level agreements (SLAs) or inefficient resource usage, resource allocations have to be adapted continuously during operation to reflect changes in application workloads. In this session, we will present a novel approach to self-adaptive resource allocation in cloud environments based on online workload forecasting and performance prediction techniques. The online prediction techniques are leveraged to continuously optimize resource allocations maximizing resource efficiency while ensuring SLA compliance. The proposed approach provides a basis for elastic capacity management in cloud environments whereby resource provisioning is managed in a proactive manner avoiding SLA violations. The resulting benefits are manifold enabling significant cost savings for cloud users and cloud providers.