Using software methods and tools to define, provision, control and optimize services and infrastructures, in large-scale, complex distributed systems based on dynamic multiple-dimensional requirements on the fly has been increasingly researched and applied. Such services and infrastructures are referred to as “Software-Defined Environments” (SDEs). Currently, this term typically refers to a collective approach in managing a computing infrastructure; IBM defines SDEs as:

“A Software Defined Environment (SDE) optimizes the entire computing infrastructure—compute, storage and network resources—so that it can adapt to the type of work required.”. We believe that SDEs are general concepts that cover integrated software methods and tools that produce intelligent management of multiple types of resources, be they machine-based (compute, networking or storage) or human-based (crowds or professional teams), for any software applications/services, platforms, middleware and infrastructures.

The notion of SDEs is thus closely related to multi-dimensional elasticity principles: the demands for dynamic provisioning and changes can be resource, quality and cost elasticity and their combination. Distributed Computing Infrastructures such as Cloud computing, ad-hoc wireless networks and P2P systems possess inherent abilities to support elasticity. Nevertheless, in most of today’s environments, resource elasticity is the main focus., Furthermore, its “throttling” is usually performed manually: Users are required to define the conditions for scaling up or down resources. Proper scaling conditions, especially when the application is executed on a third-party infrastructure are hard to define. Client needs change dynamically, requiring different optimizations relative to the amount of reserved resources. Finally, scaling relative to a single resource (e.g., compute, storage or networking elements) or a single dimension of elasticity (cost, quality and resource) leads to suboptimal use and possible performance degradation. To harvest the benefits of elastic provisioning and move towards the realization of SDEs, it is imperative that automated, multi-dimensional elasticity mechanisms be defined on multiple levels of a computing ecosystem. This central goal will be the focus of this workshop.

The goal of the 1st International Workshop on Elasticity Mechanisms for Software-Defined Environments (EMSE) will be to bring together researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry to explore, discuss and possibly redefine the state of the art in elasticity relative to modeling, methods and tools applied over any part of services and computing infrastructures as well as use-cases and applications that relate to the notion of Software-Defined Environments.
Concretely, the workshop is expected to provide insight into:

modeling: best practices in elasticity modeling as well as benchmarking of infrastructural or software resources in view of intelligent management of large scale environments.
controlling : methods or tools for efficient control of multi-dimensional elasticity and its trade-offs
testing: methods and techniques for testing elasticity of SDEs
applications: new or existing applications or platforms that exploit elastic mechanisms and display adaptive cost and quality characteristics.

This workshop will solicit original research work on fundamental aspects of elastic computing and the notion of software-defined environments as well as the design, implementation and evaluation of novel tools, methods and applications for optimizing a computing system (in parts or as a whole).

We note here that contributions may span a wide range of systems, including (but not limited to) Cloud Infrastructures, Datacenters, Mobile ad-hoc networks, Peer-to-Peer and Grid Systems, HPC architectures, etc. Topics of interest addressed by this workshop include, but not limited to:

Elasticity modeling frameworks
Intelligent resource allocation for cloud infrastructures
Elasticity for distributed, large-scale data stores (e.g., NoSQL databases)
Monitoring and analysis of multi-dimensional elasticity
Benchmarking and testing of elasticity of SDEs
Techniques and methods that measure or provide elastic decision making at any level of application or infrastructure ecosystem Applications and use cases that perform or require elastic resource management