iVMp: An Interactive VM Placement Algorithm for Agile Capital Allocation

Server consolidation is an important problem in any enterprise, where capital allocators (CAs) must approve any cost saving plans involving the acquisition or allocation of new assets and the decommissioning of inefficient assets. Our paper describes iVMp an interactive VM placement algorithm, that allows CAs to become 'agile' capital allocators that can interactively propose and update constraints and preferences as placements are recommended by the system. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that this interactive VM placement recommendation problem has been addressed in the academic literature. Our results show that the proposed algorithm finds near optimal solutions in a highly efficient manner.