Cost and Makespan-Aware Task Scheduling With Deep Reinforcement Learning in Multicloud Environments

The multicloud environments (MCE) represent a novel paradigm encompassing multiple infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, enabling users to tailor and optimize cloud services according to their specific requirements. This approach effectively addresses the limitations of a single cloud environment (SCE) regarding technical constraints, geographical coverage deficiencies, and cost-effectiveness concerns while catering to the increasingly diverse and expanding user demands. In MCE, users must employ appropriate strategies to efficiently allocate diverse tasks across multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) by leveraging the best available resources. Traditional scheduling algorithms are inadequate for addressing the complexities of such MCE. This study introduces a framework for the task scheduling procedure in MCE, treating independent task scheduling as a Markov decision process (MDP). We propose a novel agent environment framework that is designed based on the distinctive characteristics of MCE and enables independent task scheduling. Furthermore, we propose a task scheduling algorithm for MCE based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to optimize cost and makespan according to diverse user requirements. The simulation experiments are conducted using both simulated datasets and real-world datasets, demonstrating that our proposed algorithm surpasses the other five algorithms in terms of cost minimization and makespan optimization.