elektron/README.md

Elektron: A Pluggable Mesos framework with power-aware capabilities
===================================================================

![build and test](https://github.com/spdfg/elektron/workflows/Build%20and%20Test%20Elektron/badge.svg)

_Elektron_ is a [Mesos](mesos.apache.org) framework that behaves as a playground to experiment with different scheduling policies to schedule ad-hoc jobs in docker containers. It is designed as a lightweight, configurable framework, which can be used in conjunction with built-in power-capping policies to reduce the peak power and/or energy usage of co-scheduled tasks.

However, in addition to being a scheduler, Elektron also takes advantage of tools such as [Performance Co-Pilot](http://pcp.io/) and [RAPL](https://01.org/blogs/2014/running-average-power-limit--rapl) to help contain the power envelope within defined thresholds, reduce peak power consumption, and also reduce total energy consumption. Elektron is able to leverage the Mesos-provided resource abstraction to allow different algorithms to decide how to consume resource offers made by a Mesos Master.

## Architecture
![](docs/ElekArch.png)

_Elektron_ is comprised of three main components: _Task Queue_, _Scheduler_ and _Power Capper_.
* **Task Queue** - Maintains tasks that are yet to be scheduled.
* **Scheduler** - Matches tasks' resource requirements with Mesos resource offers. Tasks that matched offers are then launched on the corresponding nodes.
* **Power Capper** - The Power Capper monitors the power consumption of the nodes in the cluster through the use of [Performance Co-Pilot](http://pcp.io/). A power capping policy uses this information and decides to power cap or power uncap one or more nodes in the cluster using [RAPL](https://01.org/blogs/2014/running-average-power-limit--rapl).

## Published Research using Elektron
* Pradyumna Kaushik, Akash Kothawale, Renan DelValle, Abhishek Jain, Madhusudhan Govindaraju, “Analysis of Dynamically Switching Energy-Aware Scheduling Policies for Varying Workloads”, in the 11th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (IEEE Cloud), 2018. \[[pdf](http://cloud.cs.binghamton.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/analysis-of-energy-aware-scheduling-policy-switching-for-varying-workloads.pdf)\]
* Renan Delvalle, Pradyumna Kaushik, Abhishek Jain, Jessica Hartog, Madhusudhan Govindaraju, “Exploiting Efficiency Opportunities Based on Workloads with Electron on Heterogeneous Clusters”, in the The 10th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2017), 2017. \[[pdf](http://cloud.cs.binghamton.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ExploitingEfficiencyOpportunitiesBasedonWorkloadswithElectrononHeterogeneousClusters.pdf)\]
* Renan DelValle, Abhishek Jain, Pradyumna Kaushik, Jessica Hartog, Madhusudhan Govindaraju, “Electron: Towards Efficient Resource Management on Heterogeneous Clusters with Apache Mesos”, in the IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD), Applications Track, 2017. \[[pdf](http://cloud.cs.binghamton.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/electron-1.pdf)\]

Note: Elektron was previously known as Electron. We decided to change the name of the framework to avoid confusion with other projects named Electron.

## Features
* [Pluggable Scheduling Policies](docs/SchedulingPolicies.md)
* [Pluggable Power-Capping strategies](docs/PowerCappingStrategies.md)
* [Scheduling Policy Switching](docs/SchedulingPolicySwitching.md)

## Logs
Please go through the [log info](docs/Logs.md) to get information on different data that are logged.

## Software Requirements
**Requires [Performance Co-Pilot](http://pcp.io/) tool pmdumptext to be installed on the
machine on which electron is launched for logging to work and PCP collector agents installed
on the Mesos Agents**

Compatible with the following versions:

* Mesos 1.5.0
* Go 1.9.7 (if using go vendor for dependency management)
* Go 1.11+ (if using go modules for dependency management)

## Downloading Dependencies
[Go Modules](https://blog.golang.org/using-go-modules) can now be used for dependency management.
To download the dependencies, run the below command.
```commandline
go mod download
```
_Note that you would require Go version 1.11+ to be able to use go modules._

If vendoring dependencies, then use the below commands after cloning _elektron_.
1. `git submodule init`
2. `git submodule update`

An alternative is to clone _elektron_ using the command `git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:spdfg/elektron.git`.

## Build
Compile the source code using the `go build` tool as shown below.
```commandline
go build -o elektron
```
Use the `-h` option to get information about other command-line options.

## Run
Elektron can be run on bare-metal or using a docker-compose environment.
### Bare-Metal
Follow instructions [here](http://mesos.apache.org/documentation/latest/building/) to setup a Mesos cluster.
In addition, the following software should be installed.

| Software 				| Target Machines 			|
|-----------------------|---------------------------|
| [Performance Co-Pilot](http://pcp.io/) | Mesos master nodes + agent nodes |
| [Docker](https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/ubuntu/) | Mesos agent nodes |

If power consumption needs to be monitored, install the perfevent PMDA by following the instructions [here](https://pcp.io/man/man1/pmdaperfevent.1.html).
_Note: You might need to update the exposed event names for RAPL depending on the architecture_.
For example, update _perfevent.conf_ with the following events if measuring both CPU and DRAM power.
```
rapl::RAPL_ENERGY_PKG node
rapl::RAPL_ENERGY_DRAM node
```

**_Detail document on the bare-metal setup coming up soon!_**

### Docker-Compose
For local testing purposes, the docker-compose setup can be used. Follow instructions [here](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/) to install docker-compose.

The [entrypoint](./entrypoint.sh) script requires the IP address of the host machine to generate the [PCP config](./config).
On a linux machine, the below command can be used to set it.
```commandline
export HOST_IP=$(curl ifconfig.me)
```

#### Environment Variables
The following are the environment variables required to run _elektron_.

| Environment Variable           | Description                   | Commandline Option (if any) |
|--------------------------------|-------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| ELEKTRON_EXECUTABLE_NAME       | Name of the elektron executable. Default = elektron |
| ELEKTRON_MESOS_MASTER_LOCATION | HOST:PORT of the mesos master. Default = localhost:5050 | `-master` |
| ELEKTRON_WORKLOAD              | Filename of workload json to be scheduled. Default = workload_sample.json | `-workload` |
| ELEKLTRON_LOGDIR_PREFIX        | Prefix of the log directory generated. Default = Elektron-Test-Run | `-logPrefix` |

Use the below command to run elektron using the docker-compose setup.
```commandline
	docker-compose run elektron
```
The Mesos master UI can be viewed from the host machine using _http://localhost:5050_.

If any other commandline options need to be specified, for example using the [bin-packing](./schedulers/bin-packing.go) scheduling policy, use the below command.
```commandline
docker-compose run elektron -schedPolicy bin-packing
```

### Workload
Use the `-workload` option to specify the location of the workload json file. Below is an example workload.
```json
[
   {
      "name": "minife",
      "cpu": 3.0,
      "ram": 4096,
      "watts": 63.141,
      "image": "rdelvalle/minife:electron1",
      "cmd": "cd src && mpirun -np 3 miniFE.x -nx 100 -ny 100 -nz 100",
      "inst": 10
   },
   {
      "name": "dgemm",
      "cpu": 3.0,
      "ram": 32,
      "watts": 85.903,
      "image": "rdelvalle/dgemm:electron1",
      "cmd": "/./mt-dgemm 1024",
      "inst": 10
   }
]
```

```commandline
./elektron -master <host:port> -workload <workload json>
```

Use the `-logPrefix` option to provide the prefix for the log file names.

### Plug-in Power Capping
_Elektron_ is also capable of running power capping policies along with scheduling policies. 

Use the `-powercap` option with the name of the power capping policy to be run.

```commandline
./elektron -master <host:port> -workload <workload json> -powercap <powercap policy name>
```

If the power capping policy is _Extrema_ or _Progressive Extrema_, then the following options must also be specified.
* `-hiThreshold` - If the average historical power consumption of the cluster exceeds this value, then one or more nodes would be power capped.
* `-loThreshold` - If the average historical power consumption of the cluster is lesser than this value, then one or more nodes would be uncapped.

### Plug-in Scheduling Policy
Use the `-schedPolicy` option with the name of the scheduling policy to be deployed.<br>The default scheduling policy is First Fit.

```commandline
./elektron -master <host:port> -workload <workload json> -schedPolicy <sched policy name>
```

_Note_: To obtain the list of possible scheduling policy names, use the `-listSchedPolicies` option.

### Enable Scheduling Policy Switching
Use the `-switchSchedPolicy` option to enable scheduling policy switching.<br>

One needs to also provide a scheduling policy configuration file (see [schedPolConfig](./schedPolConfig.json) for reference).<br>
Use the `-schedPolConfig` option to specify the path of the scheduling policy configuration file.

```commandline
./elektron -master <host:port> -workload <workload json> -switchSchedPolicy -schedPolConfig <config file>
```

The following options can be used when scheduling policy switching is enabled.
* `-fixFirstSchedPol` - Fix the first scheduling policy that is deployed. 
* `-fixSchedWindow` - Allow the size of the scheduling window to be fixed.
* `-schedWindowSize` - Specify the size of the scheduling window. If no scheduling window size specified and `fixSchedWindow` option is enabled, the default size of 200 is used.
* `-schedPolSwitchCriteria` - Criteria to be used when deciding the next scheduling policy to switch to. Default criteria is task distribution (_taskDist_) based. However, one can either switch based on a Round Robin (_round-robin_) or Reverse Round Robin (_rev-round-robin_) order.