For hosting data-serving and caching workloads based on key-value stores in clouds, the cost of memory represents a significant portion of the hosting expenses. The emergence of cheaper, but slower, types of memories, such as NVDIMMs, opens opportunities to reduce the hosting costs for such workloads. The question explored in this paper is how to determine adequate allocations of different memory types in future systems with heterogeneous memory components, so as to retain desired performance SLOs and maximize the cost efficiency of the memory resource. We develop Mnemo, a memory sizing and data tiering consultant, that permits quick exploration of the cost-benefit tradeoffs associated with different configurations of the hybrid memory components used by key-value store workloads. Using experimental evaluation with different workload patterns, Mnemo is able to afford applications such as Redis, Memcached and DynamoDB, with substantial reduction in their hosting costs, at negligible impact on application performance, thus improving the overall system memory cost efficiency.
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Avoiding critical thresholds through effective monitoring
A major challenge in sustainability science is identifying targets that maximize ecosystem benefits to humanity while minimizing the risk of crossing critical system thresholds. One critical threshold is the biomass at which populations become so depleted that their population growth rates become negative—depensation. Here, we evaluate how the value of monitoring information increases as a natural resource spends more time near the critical threshold. This benefit emerges because higher monitoring precision promotes higher yield and a greater capacity to recover from overharvest. We show that precautionary buffers that trigger increased monitoring precision as resource levels decline may offer a way to minimize monitoring costs and maximize profits. In a world of finite resources, improving our understanding of the trade-off between precision in estimates of population status and the costs of mismanagement will benefit stakeholders that shoulder the burden of these economic and social costs.
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- PAR ID:
- 10378026
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Volume:
- 289
- Issue:
- 1977
- ISSN:
- 0962-8452
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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