Resource Usage Cost Optimization in Cloud Computing Using Machine Learning

Cloud computing is gaining popularity among small and medium-sized enterprises. The cost of cloud resources plays a significant role for these companies and this is why cloud resource optimization has become a very important issue. Numerous methods have been proposed to optimize cloud computing resources according to actual demand and to reduce the cost of cloud services. Such approaches mostly focus on a single factor (i.e., compute power) optimization, but this can yield unsatisfactory results in real-world cloud workloads which are multi-factor, dynamic and irregular. This article presents a novel approach which uses anomaly detection, machine learning and particle swarm optimization to achieve a cost-optimal cloud resource configuration. It is a complete solution which works in a closed loop without the need for external supervision or initialization, builds knowledge about the usage patterns of the system being optimized and filters out anomalous situations on the fly. Our solution can adapt to changes in both system load and the cloud provider's pricing plan. It was tested in Microsoft's cloud environment Azure using data collected from a real-life system. Experiments demonstrate that over a period of 10 months, a cost reduction of 85 percent was achieved.