SCORE: Simulator for cloud optimization of resources and energy consumption

Achieving efficiency both in terms of resource utilisation and energy consumption is a complex challenge, especially in large-scale wide-purpose data centers that serve cloud-computing services. Simulation presents an appropriate solution for the development and testing of strategies that aim to improve efficiency problems before their applications in production environments. Various cloud simulators have been proposed to cover different aspects of the operation environment of cloud-computing systems. In this paper, we define the SCORE tool, which is dedicated to the simulation of energy-efficient monolithic and parallel-scheduling models and for the execution of heterogeneous, realistic and synthetic workloads. The simulator has been evaluated through empirical tests. The results of the experiments confirm that SCORE is a performant and reliable tool for testing energy-efficiency, security, and scheduling strategies in cloud-computing environments.