Control Theory + Computer Systems

Applying control theory to computer systems is fairly new and the research is currently primarily pursued by two groups at IBM Research and HP labs. Control theory is an interesting tool for systems researchers and it may provide solutions where we only have ad-hoc methods.

The Bible

Feedback Control of Computing Systems

Groups

IBM's adaptive control group page
HP Labs ACTS group page - specific projects pages are buried some where

Basics

A Control Theory Foundation for Self-Managing Systems - control theory + systems basics
Designing Controllable Computer Systems - read about basic properties needed by a controllable system

Application to different systems

Using MIMO Linear Control for Load Balancing in Computing Systems - Improving database transaction througput by changing the memory size using LQR with MIMO
On-Line Response Time Optimization of An Apache Web Server - RT vs Maxclients
Utilization vs. SLO-Based Control for Dynamic Sizing of Resource Partitions - HP PRM containers. RT, Throughput vs Utilization

Advanced controllers

Utility-Driven Workload Management using Nested Control Design

Misc

Class-based Kernel Resource Management (CKRM) - customizable controllers in the Linux kernel