A fault-intrusion-tolerant system and deadline-aware algorithm for scheduling scientific workflow in the cloud

• Published in: PeerJ. Computer science 2021-11, Vol.7, p.e747-e747, Article e747
• Main Authors: Farid, Mazen, Latip, Rohaya, Hussin, Masnida, Abdul Hamid, Nor Asilah Wati
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Algorithms and Analysis of Algorithms; Analysis; Cloud computing; Completion time; Computer Networks and Communications; Confidentiality; Deadlines; Decision making; Distributed and Parallel Computing; Failure; Fault tolerance; Innovations; Intrusion; Intrusion tolerance; Literature reviews; Network Science and Online Social Networks; Reliability; Resource scheduling; Scheduling; Scheduling scientific workflow; Security and Privacy; Task scheduling; Virtual computer systems; Virtual environments; Workflow management systems
• ISSN: 2376-5992; 2376-5992
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.747

Recent technological developments have enabled the execution of more scientific solutions on cloud platforms. Cloud-based scientific workflows are subject to various risks, such as security breaches and unauthorized access to resources. By attacking side channels or virtual machines, attackers may destroy servers, causing interruption and delay or incorrect output. Although cloud-based scientific workflows are often used for vital computational-intensive tasks, their failure can come at a great cost. To increase workflow reliability, we propose the Fault and Intrusion-tolerant Workflow Scheduling algorithm (FITSW). The proposed workflow system uses task executors consisting of many virtual machines to carry out workflow tasks. FITSW duplicates each sub-task three times, uses an intermediate data decision-making mechanism, and then employs a deadline partitioning method to determine sub-deadlines for each sub-task. This way, dynamism is achieved in task scheduling using the resource flow. The proposed technique generates or recycles task executors, keeps the workflow clean, and improves efficiency. Experiments were conducted on WorkflowSim to evaluate the effectiveness of FITSW using metrics such as task completion rate, success rate and completion time. The results show that FITSW not only raises the success rate by about 12%, it also improves the task completion rate by 6.2% and minimizes the completion time by about 15.6% in comparison with intrusion tolerant scientific workflow ITSW system.