Gridiron: A Technique for Augmenting Cloud Workloads with Network Bandwidth Requirements

Abstract: Cloud applications use more than just server resources, they also require networking resources. We propose a new technique to model network bandwidth demand of networked cloud applications. Our technique, Gridiron, augments VM workload traces from Azure cloud with network bandwidth requirements. The key to the Gridiron technique is to derive inter-VM network bandwidth requirements using Amdahl's second law. As a case study, we use Gridiron to generate realistic traces with network bandwidth demands for a distributed machine learning training application. Workloads generated with Gridiron allow datacenter operators to estimate the network bandwidth demands of cloud applications and enable more realistic cloud resource scheduler evaluation.