Smart Scheduling of Continuous Data-Intensive Workflows with Machine Learning Triggered Execution

Abstract: To extract value from evergrowing volumes of data, coming from a number of different sources, and to drive decision making, organizations frequently resort to the composition of data processing workflows, since they are expressive, flexible, and scalable. The typical workflow model enforces strict temporal synchronization across processing steps without accounting the actual effect of intermediate computations on the final workflow output. However, this is not the most desirable behavior in a multitude of scenarios. We identify a class of applications for continuous data processing where workflow output changes slowly and without great significance in a short-to-medium time window, thus wasting compute resources and energy with current approaches. To overcome such inefficiency, we introduce a novel workflow model, for continuous and data-intensive processing, capable of relaxing triggering semantics according to the impact input data is assessed to have on changing the workflow output. To assess this impact, learn the correlation between input and output variation, and guarantee correctness within a given tolerated error constant, we rely on Machine Learning. The functionality of this workflow model is implemented in SmartFlux, a middleware framework which can be effortlessly integrated with existing workflow managers. Experimental results indicate we are able to save a significant amount of resources while not deviating the workflow output beyond a small error constant with high confidence level.