A solution of dynamic VMs placement problem for energy consumption optimization based on evolutionary game theory

Power saving of data centers has become an urgent problem in recent years. For a virtualized data center, optimizing the placement of virtual machines (VMs) dynamically is one of the most effective methods for power savings. Based on a deep study on VMs placement, a solution is proposed and described in this paper to solve the problem of dynamic placement of VMs toward optimization of their energy consumptions. A computational model of energy consumption is proposed and built. A novel algorithm based on evolutionary game theory is also presented, which successfully addresses the challenges faced by dynamic placement of VMs. It is proved that the proposed algorithm can reach the optimal solutions theoretically. Experimental results also demonstrate that, by adjusting VMs placement dynamically, the energy consumption can be reduced correspondingly. In comparison with the existing state of the arts, our proposed method outperforms other five algorithms tested and achieves savings of 30-40% on energy consumption.