Decentralizing the cloud: How can small data centers cooperate?

Cloud computing has become pervasive due to attractive features such as on-demand resource provisioning and elasticity. Most cloud providers are centralized entities that employ massive data centers. However, in recent times, due to increasing concerns about privacy and data control, many small data centers (SDCs) established by different providers are emerging in an attempt to meet demand locally. However, SDCs can suffer from resource in-elasticity due to their relatively scarce resources, resulting in a loss of performance and revenue. In this paper we propose a decentralized cloud model in which a group of SDCs can cooperate with each other to improve performance. Moreover, we design a general strategy function for the SDCs to evaluate the performance of cooperation based on different dimensions of resource sharing. Through extensive simulations using a realistic data center model, we show that the strategies based on reciprocity are more effective than other involved strategies, e.g., those using prediction on historical data. Our results show that the reciprocity-based strategy can thrive in a heterogeneous environment with competing strategies.