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Version: 2.8.0

Workload Prioritization

Overview​

When dealing with services in resource-limited scenarios, it becomes paramount to prioritize key user experiences and business-critical features over less crucial tasks or background workloads. For instance, in an e-commerce platform, the checkout process must take precedence over functionalities like personalized recommendations, especially during resource shortage or high traffic. Aperture's Weighted Fair Queuing Scheduler (WFQ) enables such prioritization of flows over others based on their labels, ensuring user experience or revenue is maximized during overloads or other failure scenarios.

Configuration​

This policy is based on the Load Scheduling with Average Latency Feedback blueprint. It defines service protection on cart-service.prod.svc.cluster.local using a load scheduler and overload detection is based on average latency similar to the protection policy. In addition, workload prioritization is specified in the load scheduler based on user types accessing the service. User types are identified based on the value of a header label http.request.header.user_type. Requests matching label value guest are assigned a priority of 50, whereas those matching subscriber are given a priority of 200.

The below values.yaml file can be generated by following the steps in the Installation section.

# yaml-language-server: $schema=../../../../../../blueprints/load-scheduling/average-latency/gen/definitions.json
# Generated values file for load-scheduling/average-latency blueprint
# Documentation/Reference for objects and parameters can be found at:
# https://docs.fluxninja.com/reference/blueprints/load-scheduling/average-latency
policy:
  # Name of the policy.
  # Type: string
  # Required: True
  policy_name: workload-prioritization
  # List of additional circuit components.
  # Type: []aperture.spec.v1.Component
  components: []
  # The interval between successive evaluations of the Circuit.
  # Type: string
  evaluation_interval: "10s"
  service_protection_core:
    adaptive_load_scheduler:
      load_scheduler:
        # The selectors determine the flows that are protected by this policy.
        # Type: []aperture.spec.v1.Selector
        # Required: True
        selectors:
          - control_point: ingress
            service: cart-service.prod.svc.cluster.local
        # Scheduler parameters.
        # Type: aperture.spec.v1.SchedulerParameters
        scheduler:
          workloads:
            - label_matcher:
                match_labels:
                  http.request.header.user_type: guest
              parameters:
                priority: "50"
            - label_matcher:
                match_labels:
                  http.request.header.user_type: subscriber
              parameters:
                priority: "200"
  latency_baseliner:
    # Tolerance factor beyond which the service is considered to be in overloaded state. E.g. if EMA of latency is 50ms and if Tolerance is 1.1, then service is considered to be in overloaded state if current latency is more than 55ms.
    # Type: float64
    latency_tolerance_multiplier: 1.1
    # Flux Meter defines the scope of latency measurements.
    # Type: aperture.spec.v1.FluxMeter
    # Required: True
    flux_meter:
      selectors:
        - service: cart-service.prod.svc.cluster.local
          control_point: ingress

Generated Policy

apiVersion: fluxninja.com/v1alpha1
kind: Policy
metadata:
  labels:
    fluxninja.com/validate: "true"
  name: workload-prioritization
spec:
  circuit:
    components:
    - flow_control:
        adaptive_load_scheduler:
          dry_run: false
          dry_run_config_key: dry_run
          in_ports:
            overload_confirmation:
              constant_signal:
                value: 1
            setpoint:
              signal_name: SETPOINT
            signal:
              signal_name: SIGNAL
          out_ports:
            desired_load_multiplier:
              signal_name: DESIRED_LOAD_MULTIPLIER
            observed_load_multiplier:
              signal_name: OBSERVED_LOAD_MULTIPLIER
          parameters:
            alerter:
              alert_name: Load Throttling Event
            gradient:
              max_gradient: 1
              min_gradient: 0.1
              slope: -1
            load_multiplier_linear_increment: 0.025
            load_scheduler:
              scheduler:
                workloads:
                - label_matcher:
                    match_labels:
                      http.request.header.user_type: guest
                  parameters:
                    priority: "50"
                - label_matcher:
                    match_labels:
                      http.request.header.user_type: subscriber
                  parameters:
                    priority: "200"
              selectors:
              - control_point: ingress
                service: cart-service.prod.svc.cluster.local
            max_load_multiplier: 2
    - query:
        promql:
          evaluation_interval: 10s
          out_ports:
            output:
              signal_name: SIGNAL
          query_string: sum(increase(flux_meter_sum{flow_status="OK", flux_meter_name="workload-prioritization",
            policy_name="workload-prioritization"}[30s]))/sum(increase(flux_meter_count{flow_status="OK",
            flux_meter_name="workload-prioritization", policy_name="workload-prioritization"}[30s]))
    - query:
        promql:
          evaluation_interval: 30s
          out_ports:
            output:
              signal_name: SIGNAL_LONG_TERM
          query_string: sum(increase(flux_meter_sum{flow_status="OK", flux_meter_name="workload-prioritization",
            policy_name="workload-prioritization"}[1800s]))/sum(increase(flux_meter_count{flow_status="OK",
            flux_meter_name="workload-prioritization", policy_name="workload-prioritization"}[1800s]))
    - arithmetic_combinator:
        in_ports:
          lhs:
            signal_name: SIGNAL_LONG_TERM
          rhs:
            constant_signal:
              value: 1.1
        operator: mul
        out_ports:
          output:
            signal_name: SETPOINT
    evaluation_interval: 10s
  resources:
    flow_control:
      classifiers: []
      flux_meters:
        workload-prioritization:
          selectors:
          - control_point: ingress
            service: cart-service.prod.svc.cluster.local
    infra_meters: {}

info

Circuit Diagram for this policy.

Installation​

Generate a values file specific to the policy. This can be achieved using the command provided below.

aperturectl blueprints values --name=load-scheduling/average-latency --version=v2.8.0 --output-file=values.yaml

Adjust the values to match the application requirements. Use the following command to generate the policy.

aperturectl blueprints generate --name=load-scheduling/average-latency --values-file=values.yaml --output-dir=policy-gen --version=v2.8.0

Apply the policy using the aperturectl CLI or kubectl.

Pass the --kube flag with aperturectl to directly apply the generated policy on a Kubernetes cluster in the namespace where the Aperture Controller is installed.

aperturectl apply policy --file=policy-gen/policies/load-scheduling.yaml --kube

Policy in Action​

The traffic generator in this scenario is configured to generate similar traffic pattern (number of concurrent users) for 2 types of users - subscribers and guests.

The below dashboard shows that, during overload periods, requests from subscriber users have a higher acceptance rate than those from guest users.

Workload Prioritization

Demo Video​

The below demo video shows the basic concurrency limiter and workload prioritization policy in action within Aperture Playground.

Demo Video