Service allocation in the cloud environments using multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm based on crowding distance

Cloud computing is an emerging Internet-based computing paradigm, with its built-in elasticity and scalability. In cloud computing field, a service provider offers a large number of resources like computing units, storage space, and software for customers with a relatively low cost. As the number of customer increases, fulfilling their requirements may become an important yet intractable matter. Therefore, service allocation is one of the most challenging issues in the cloud environments. The problem of service allocation in the cloud computing is thought to be a combinatorial optimization problem to a large company for numbers of their customers and owned resources could be huge enough. This paper considers three conflicting objectives, namely maximizing revenue for users and providers as well as finding the optimal solution at desired time. We use a Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization based on Crowding Distance (MOPSO-CD) to solve the problem because MOPSO-CD is highly competitive in converging towards the Pareto front and generates a well-distributed set of non-dominated solutions. In addition, fuzzy set theory is employed to specify the best compromise solution. We simulate the proposed method using Matlab and compare the performance of the method against the performance of two other multi-objective algorithms, in order to prove that the proposed method is highly competitive with respect to them. Finally, the experiments results show that the method improves the speed of the execution of the resources allocation algorithm while generating high revenue for both the users and the providers and increasing the resource utilization.