This article describes how with the rapid growth of cloud services in recent years, it is very difficult to choose the most suitable cloud services among those services that provide similar... Show More

This article describes how with the rapid growth of cloud services in recent years, it is very difficult to choose the most suitable cloud services among those services that provide similar functionality. The quality of services (QoS) is considered the most significant factor for appropriate service selection and user satisfaction in cloud computing. However, with a vast diversity in the cloud services, selection of a suitable cloud service is a very challenging task for a customer under an unpredictable environment. Due to the multidimensional attributes of QoS, cloud service selection problems are treated as a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. This study introduces a methodology for determining the appropriate cloud service by integrating the AHP weighing method with TOPSIS method. Using AHP, the authors define the architecture for selection process of cloud services and compute the criteria weights using pairwise comparison. Thereafter, with the TOPSIS method, the authors obtain the final ranking of the cloud service based on overall performance. A real-time cloud case study affirms the potential of our proposed methodology, when compared to other MCDM methods. Finally, a sensitivity analysis testifies the effectiveness and the robustness of our proposed methodology.

This article describes how the time taken to execute a query and return the results, increase exponentially as the data size increases, leading to more waiting times of the user. Hadoop with its... Show More

This article describes how the time taken to execute a query and return the results, increase exponentially as the data size increases, leading to more waiting times of the user. Hadoop with its distributed processing capability is considered as an efficient solution for processing such large data. Hadoop's Default Data Placement Strategy (HDDPS) allocates the data blocks randomly across the cluster of nodes without considering any of the execution parameters. This result in non-availability of the blocks required for execution in local machine so that the data has to be transferred across the network for execution, leading to data locality issue. Also, it is commonly observed that most of the data intensive applications show grouping semantics. Hence during query execution, only a part of the Big-Data set is utilized. Since such execution parameters and grouping behavior are not considered, the default placement does not perform well resulting in several lacunas such as decreased local map task execution, increased query execution time, query latency, etc. In order to overcome such issues, an Optimal Data Placement Strategy (ODPS) based on grouping semantics is proposed. Initially, user history log is dynamically analyzed for identifying access pattern which is depicted as a graph. Markov clustering, a Graph clustering algorithm is applied to identify groupings among the dataset. Then, an Optimal Data Placement Algorithm (ODPA) is proposed based on the statistical measures estimated from the clustered graph. This in turn re-organizes the default data layouts in HDFS to achieve improved performance for Big-Data sets in heterogeneous distributed environment. Our proposed strategy is tested in a 15 node cluster placed in a single rack topology. The result has proved to be more efficient for massive datasets, reducing query execution time by 26% and significantly improves the data locality by 38% compared to HDDPS.

This article describes how Cloud Computing is not just a buzzword but a shift from IT departments to the outsourcing vendors without impacting business efficiency. Some organizations are moving... Show More

This article describes how Cloud Computing is not just a buzzword but a shift from IT departments to the outsourcing vendors without impacting business efficiency. Some organizations are moving towards cloud computing but many have resistance to adopting cloud computing due to limitations in knowledge and awareness of the classifying elements, which effect decisions on the acceptance of cloud computing. Therefore, this article has focused on accumulating the elements, which can act as enablers, by reviewing existing literature and studies from both professional and academic viewpoints. All the identified enablers have been structurally modeled to develop the relationship matrix and establish the driving power and dependence power of every element. This is done by employing Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) and Cross Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) analysis.

This article described how in the competitive deregulated electricity market forecasting has become one of the essential planning tool that assists the planners in preparing the power systems for... Show More

This article described how in the competitive deregulated electricity market forecasting has become one of the essential planning tool that assists the planners in preparing the power systems for future demands. The commercial success of the market players depends on their competitive bidding strategy which is suffuicient enough to meet the regulatory requirements and minimize the cost. Artificial neural networks due to their capability of non-linear mapping finds extensive application in the field of price forecasting. Although, they are extensively used as forecasting model, they have certain limitations which are detrimental to system performance. The training time of the artificial neural network is affected by the complexity of the system, and moreover, they require a large amount of data for complex problems. The worl presented in this article deals with the application of the generalized neuron model for forecasting the electricity price. The generalized neuron model overcomes the limitation of the conventional ANN. The electricity price of the New South Wales electricity market is forecast to test the performance of the proposed model. The free parameters of the proposed model are trained using fuzzy tuned genetic algorithms to increase efficacy of the model.

This article describes how basing on the future behavior of microgrid system, forecasting renewable energy power generation, load and real-time electricity price, a model predictive control (MPC)... Show More

This article describes how basing on the future behavior of microgrid system, forecasting renewable energy power generation, load and real-time electricity price, a model predictive control (MPC) strategy is proposed in this article to optimize microgrid operations, while meeting the time-varying requirements and operation constraints. Considering the problems of unit commitment, energy storage, economic dispatching, sale-purchase of electricity and load reduction schedule, the authors first model a microgrid system with a large number of constraints and variables to model the power generation technology and physical characteristics. Meanwhile the authors use a mixed logic dynamical framework to guarantee a reasonable behavior for grid interaction and storage and consider the influences of battery life and recession. Then for forecasting uncertainties in the microgrid, a feedback mechanism is introduced in MPC to solve the problem by using a receding horizon control. The objective of minimizing the operation costs is achieved by an MPC strategy for scheduling the behaviors of components in the microgrid. Finally, a comparative analysis has been carried out between the MPC and some traditional control methods. The MPC leads to a significant improvement in operating costs and on the computational burden. The economy and efficiency of the MPC are shown by the simulations.