Hybrid Ensemble Approach for Accurate Workload Prediction in Dynamic Cloud Environments

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering
© 2026 by SSRG - IJECE Journal
Volume 13 Issue 2
Year of Publication : 2026
Authors : Naimisha S. Trivedi, Ajay N. Upadhyaya
pdf
How to Cite?

Naimisha S. Trivedi, Ajay N. Upadhyaya, "Hybrid Ensemble Approach for Accurate Workload Prediction in Dynamic Cloud Environments," SSRG International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering, vol. 13,  no. 2, pp. 180-194, 2026. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23488549/IJECE-V13I2P114

Abstract:

Time series forecasting is important for cloud computing because it helps keep services running, ensures that Quality of Service (QoS) is maintained at a high level even when workloads change, and makes sure that resources are used well. In the actual world, cloud workloads do not stay the same all the time. Rather, they evolve throughout time, exhibiting cyclical trends, nonlinear fluctuations, and periods of elevated demand. This complicates the utilization of conventional forecasting methodologies. This study presents a hybrid ensemble-based approach for short-term cloud workload prediction that enhances adaptability through workload-aware modeling to tackle this issue. The method employs feature extraction and K-means clustering, complemented by a dynamically weighted ensemble of Prophet, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Linear Regression models. NASA HTTP server logs and ClarkNet WWW datasets are used to test the architecture with different window sizes and prediction horizons. Experimental results indicate that modest observation windows and short-term perspectives yield the optimal correlation between response time and prediction stability. On the other hand, the hybrid ensemble always does better than single models in different types of workloads. These results show how effectively the suggested technique works for proactive provisioning of cloud resources and reliable auto-scaling in environments that are cloud-native.

Keywords:

Cloud computing, Hybrid ensemble model, Machine Learning, Time series forecasting, Workload prediction.

References:

[1] Binbin Feng, and Zhijun Ding “Application-Oriented Cloud Workload Prediction: A Survey and New Perspectives,” Tsinghua Science and Technology, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 34-54, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[2] Mohammad Masdari, and Afsane Khoshnevis, “A Survey and Classification of the Workload Forecasting Methods in Cloud Computing,” Cluster Computing, vol. 23, pp. 2399-2424, 2020.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[3] Rodrigo N. Calheiros et al., “Workload Prediction Using ARIMA Model and Its Impact on Cloud Applications’ QoS,” IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 449-458, 2015.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[4] Parminder Singh, Pooja Gupta, and Kiran Jyoti, “TASM: Technocrat ARIMA and SVR Model for Workload Prediction of Web Applications in Cloud,” Cluster Computing, vol. 22, pp. 619-633, 2019.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[5] H. Zhang, J. Li, and H. Yang, “Cloud Computing Load Prediction Method based on CNN-BiLSTM Model Under Low-Carbon Background,” Scientific Reports, vol. 14, pp. 1-15, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[6] Shivani Arbat et al., “Wasserstein Adversarial Transformer for Cloud Workload Prediction,” Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 36, no. 11, pp. 1-7, 2022.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[7] Rashpinder Kaur Jagait et al., “Load Forecasting Under Concept Drift: Online Ensemble Learning with Recurrent Neural Network and ARIMA,” IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 98992-99008, 2021.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[8] Andrea Rossi et al., “Forecasting Workload in Cloud Computing: Towards Uncertainty-Aware Predictions and Transfer Learning,” Cluster Computing, vol. 28, pp. 1-20, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[9] Wiem Matoussi, and Tarek Hamrouni, “A New Temporal Locality-Based Workload Prediction Approach for SaaS Services in a Cloud Environment,” Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 3973-3987, 2022.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[10] Qiong Sun, Zhiyong Tan, and Xiaolu Zhou, “Workload Prediction of Cloud Computing based on SVM and BP Neural Networks,” Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems: Applications in Engineering and Technology, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 2861-2867, 2020.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[11] Minxian Xu et al., “esDNN: Deep Neural Network Based Multivariate Workload Prediction in Cloud Computing Environments,” ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 1-24, 2022.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[12] Yashwant Singh Patel, and Jatin Bedi, “MAG-D: A Multivariate Attention Network based Approach for Cloud Workload Forecasting,” Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 142, pp. 376-392, 2023.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[13] Mustafa M. Al-Sayed, “Workload Time Series Cumulative Prediction Mechanism for Cloud Resources Using Neural Machine Translation Technique,” Journal of Grid Computing, vol. 20, pp. 1-29, 2022.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[14] Pasan Bhanu Guruge, and Y.H.P.P. Priyadarshana, “Time Series Forecasting-Based Kubernetes Autoscaling Using Facebook Prophet and Long Short-Term Memory,” Frontiers in Computer Science, vol. 7, pp. 1-13, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[15] Serdar Arslan, “A Hybrid Forecasting Model using LSTM and Prophet for Energy Consumption with Decomposition of Time Series Data,” PeerJ Computer Science, vol. 8, pp. 1-23, 2022.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[16] Linfeng Wen et al., “TempoScale: A Cloud Workloads Prediction Approach Integrating Short-Term and Long-Term Information,” 2024 IEEE 17th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD), Shenzhen, China, pp. 183-193, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[17] Qiufu Li, and Linlin Shen, “Dual-Branch Interactive Cross-Frequency Attention Network for Deep Feature Learning,” Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 254, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[18] Sheetal Garg et al., “An Effective Deep Learning Architecture Leveraging BIRCH Clustering for Resource Usage Prediction of Heterogeneous Machines In Cloud Data Center,” Cluster Computing, vol. 27, pp. 5699-5719, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[19] Shengsheng Lin et al., “Benchmarking and Revisiting Time Series Forecasting Methods in Cloud Workload Prediction,” Cluster Computing, vol. 28, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[20] Li Ruan et al., “Towards Workload Trend Time Series Probabilistic Prediction via Probabilistic Deep Learning,” SSTD '23: Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Data, Calgary AB Canada, pp. 41-50, 2023.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[21] Amal Mahmoud, and Ammar Mohammed, “Leveraging Hybrid Deep Learning Models for Enhanced Multivariate Time Series Forecasting,” Neural Processing Letters, vol. 56, pp. 1-25, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[22] Haibin Yuan, and Shengchen Liao, “A Time Series-Based Approach to Elastic Kubernetes Scaling,” Electronics, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 1-16, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[23] Ferran Agulló et al., “Enhancing the Output of Time Series Forecasting Algorithms for Cloud Resource Provisioning,” Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 170, pp. 1-15, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[24] Mateusz Smendowski, and Piotr Nawrocki, “Optimizing Multi-Time Series Forecasting for Enhanced Cloud Resource Utilization Based on Machine Learning,” Knowledge-Based Systems, vol. 304, pp. 1-21, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[25] Anna Lackinger, Andrea Morichetta, and Schahram Dustdar, “Time Series Predictions for Cloud Workloads: A Comprehensive Evaluation,” 2024 IEEE International Conference on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), Shanghai, China, pp. 36-45, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[26] Andrea Rossi et al., “Clustering-Based Numerosity Reduction for Cloud Workload Forecasting,” Algorithmic Aspects of Cloud Computing, vol. 14053, pp. 115-132, 2023.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[27] Mustafa Daraghmeh, Anjali Agarwal, and Yaser Jararweh, “An Ensemble Clustering Approach for Modeling Hidden Categorization Perspectives for Cloud Workloads,” Cluster Computing, vol. 27, pp. 4779-4803, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[28] Sabeur Lajili, Zaki Brahmi, and Mohamed Nazih Omri, “ML WPStreamCloud: ML-based Workload Prediction and Task Clustering for Efficient Stream Application Ofoading in Heterogeneous Edge and Cloud Environments,” Procedia Computer Science, vol. 246, pp. 1527-1537, 2024.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[29] Mohamed S. Halawa, Rebeca P. Díaz Redondo, and Ana Fernández Vilas, “Unsupervised KPIs-Based Clustering of Jobs in HPC Data Centers,” Sensors, vol. 20, no. 15, pp. 1-21, 2020.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[30] Xiangfei Qiu et al., “DUET: Dual Clustering Enhanced Multivariate Time Series Forecasting,” Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, vol. 1, pp. 1185-1196, 2025.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[31] Sean J. Taylor, and Benjamin Letham, “Forecasting at Scale,” The American Statistician, vol. 72, no. 1, pp. 37-45, 2018.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[32] Md. Badrul Ahsan Tamal et al., “Forecasting of Solar Photovoltaic Output Energy using LSTM Machine Learning Algorithm,” 2022 4th International Conference on Sustainable Technologies for Industry 4.0 (STI), Dhaka, Bangladesh, pp. 1-6, 2022. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link].
[33] Jitendra Kumar, Ashutosh Kumar Singh, and Rajkumar Buyya, “Ensemble Learning Based Predictive Framework for Virtual Machine Resource Request Prediction,” Neurocomputing, vol. 397, pp. 20-30, 2020.
[CrossRef] [Google Scholar] [Publisher Link]
[34] NASA, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://ita.ee.lbl.gov/html/contrib/NASA-HTTP.html
[35] ClarkNet, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://ita.ee.lbl.gov/html/contrib/ClarkNet-HTTP.html