Exploiting Spot Instances for Time-Critical Cloud Workloads Using Optimal Randomized Strategies

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bhuyan, Neelkamal, Bhatia, Randeep, Kodialam, Murali, Lakshman, TV
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Bhuyan, Neelkamal
Bhatia, Randeep
Kodialam, Murali
Lakshman, TV
author_facet Bhuyan, Neelkamal
Bhatia, Randeep
Kodialam, Murali
Lakshman, TV
contents This paper addresses the challenge of deadline-aware online scheduling for jobs in hybrid cloud environments, where jobs may run on either cost-effective but unreliable spot instances or more expensive on-demand instances, under hard deadlines. We first establish a fundamental limit for existing (predominantly-) deterministic policies, proving a worst-case competitive ratio of $Ω(K)$, where $K$ is the cost ratio between on-demand and spot instances. We then present a novel randomized scheduling algorithm, ROSS, that achieves a provably optimal competitive ratio of $\sqrt{K}$ under reasonable deadlines, significantly improving upon existing approaches. Extensive evaluations on real-world trace data from Azure and AWS demonstrate that ROSS effectively balances cost optimization and deadline guarantees, consistently outperforming the state-of-the-art by up to $30\%$ in cost savings, across diverse spot market conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14612
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploiting Spot Instances for Time-Critical Cloud Workloads Using Optimal Randomized Strategies
Bhuyan, Neelkamal
Bhatia, Randeep
Kodialam, Murali
Lakshman, TV
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Networking and Internet Architecture
Performance
Optimization and Control
C.4; C.2.4
This paper addresses the challenge of deadline-aware online scheduling for jobs in hybrid cloud environments, where jobs may run on either cost-effective but unreliable spot instances or more expensive on-demand instances, under hard deadlines. We first establish a fundamental limit for existing (predominantly-) deterministic policies, proving a worst-case competitive ratio of $Ω(K)$, where $K$ is the cost ratio between on-demand and spot instances. We then present a novel randomized scheduling algorithm, ROSS, that achieves a provably optimal competitive ratio of $\sqrt{K}$ under reasonable deadlines, significantly improving upon existing approaches. Extensive evaluations on real-world trace data from Azure and AWS demonstrate that ROSS effectively balances cost optimization and deadline guarantees, consistently outperforming the state-of-the-art by up to $30\%$ in cost savings, across diverse spot market conditions.
title Exploiting Spot Instances for Time-Critical Cloud Workloads Using Optimal Randomized Strategies
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Networking and Internet Architecture
Performance
Optimization and Control
C.4; C.2.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14612