Resource failures risk assessment modelling in distributed environments

Service providers offer access to resources and services in distributed environments such as Grids and Clouds through formal Service level Agreements (SLA), and need well-balanced infrastructures so that they can maximise the Quality of Service (QoS) they offer and minimise the number of SLA violations. We propose a mathematical model to predict the risk of failure of resources in such environments using a discrete-time analytical model driven by reliability functions fitted to observed data. The model relies on the resource historical data so as to predict the risk of failure for a given time interval. The model is evaluated by comparing the predicted risk of failure with the observed risk of failure, and is shown to accurately predict the resources risk of failure, allowing a service provider to selectively choose which SLA request to accept. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.