ML-Powered Problem Detection in Chameleon

Today’s Continuous Integration/Continuous Development (CI/CD) trends encourage rapid design of software using a wide range of software components, followed by frequent updates that are immediately deployed on the cloud. The complexity of cloud systems along with the component diversity and break-neck pace of development amplify the difficulty in identifying or fixing problems related to performance, resilience, and security. Furthermore, existing approaches that rely on human experts—e.g., methods involving manually-written rules/scripts—have limited applicability to modern CI/CD processes, as they are fragile, costly, and often not scalable. Consequently, there is growing interest in applying machine learning (ML) based methods for identifying vulnerabilities in code, non-compliant or otherwise problematic software, and resilience problems in systems and networks. However, despite some success stories in applying AI for cloud operations (e.g., in resource management), much of cloud operations still rely on human-centric methods, which require updates as the cloud undergoes CI/CD cycles. The goal of this summer project is to explore methods of automation for the Chameleon Cloud to enable faster detection and diagnosis of problems. Overall, the project will contribute to an overarching vision of building an infrastructure that collects and synthesizes cross-layer data from large-scale cloud systems, applying ML-powered methods to automate cloud ops, and, further, making this data available to researchers through coherent APIs and analytics engines.

Currently, Chameleon uses runbooks as manual guides for operational tasks, including routine maintenance and troubleshooting. However, these traditional runbooks often fall short in dynamic and fast-paced CI/CD environments, as they lack the flexibility to adapt to changes in software versions, deployment configurations, and the unique challenges of emerging issues. To overcome these challenges, the project will leverage ML to automate anomaly detection based on telemetry data collected from Chameleon Cloud’s monitoring frameworks. This method will not only facilitate rapid identification of performance anomalies but also enable automated generation of runbooks. These runbooks can then offer operators actionable steps to resolve issues efficiently, thereby making the anomaly mitigation process more efficient. Furthermore, this approach supports the automatic creation of targeted runbooks for newly generated support tickets, enhancing response times and system reliability.

Time-permitting, using a collection of automated runbooks (each targeting a specific problem), we will analyze support tickets, common problems, and their frequency to offer insights and suggestions to help roadmapping for Chameleon Cloud to offer the best return on investment on fixing problems.

A key aspect of this summer project is enhancing the reproducibility of experiments in the cloud and improving data accessibility. We plan to design infrastructures and APIs so that the telemetry data that is essential for anomaly detection and automated runbooks is systematically documented and made available. We also aim to collect and share insights and modules on applying ML for cloud operations, including ML pipelines, data labeling strategies, data preprocessing techniques, and feature engineering. By sharing these insights, we aim to promote best practices and support reproducible experiments on public clouds, thus fostering future ML-based practices within the Chameleon Cloud community and beyond. Time permitting, we will explore applying lightweight privacy-preserving approaches on telemetry data as well.

• Topics: Machine Learning, Anomaly Detection, Automated Runbooks, Telemetry Data
• Skills:
  • Proficiency in Machine Learning: Understanding of ML algorithms for anomaly detection and automation.
  • Cloud Computing Knowledge: Familiarity with CI/CD environments and cloud architectures.
  • Programming Skills: Proficiency in languages such as Python, especially in cloud and ML contexts.
  • Data Analysis: Ability to analyze telemetry data using data analytics tools and libraries.
• Difficulty: Hard
• Size: Large
• Mentors: Michael Sherman