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Re:PID Controller for controlling the number of servers in a... by srean on Sunday July 04, 2021 @11:20PM (#27734367)
Parent's point is that they are worse than bang-bang controller.

Its not very clear from your comment but are you claiming that PIDs are not predictable ?

Re:PID Controller for controlling the number of servers in a... by jcalvinowens on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:27AM (#27734625)
Huh? Parent was arguing in favor of it: "PID is a damn sight more sophisticated", "even rudimentary control theory is an improvement".

Yes, PID upset is a real problem when things start going sideways, as they tend to occasionally in the real world.

Re:PID Controller for controlling the number of servers in a... by jameshart on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:22PM (#27739998)
My point was more that the idea of applying control theory is an improvement over doing what amounts to bang-bang control without really thinking about it.

Not that PID is better, not that bang-bang is better, just that.. learning from control theory is likely a fruitful direction to go in.

Most autos along algorithms have heuristically hacked hysteresis built in to stop them oscillating between provisioning a node, dropping a node, provisioning, dropping. That kind of threshold tuning stuff is ripe for replacement with something more rigorous. PID control is an example of a rigorous way to solve that in continuous control. It likely doesn’t directly work for capacity, but control theory in general does have better answers for this kind of thing than just PID.

Re:PID Controller for controlling the number of servers in a... by jcalvinowens on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:36PM (#27740112)
Ok, I can agree with that.
Re:PID Controller for controlling the number of servers in a... by rualca on Monday July 05, 2021 @02:05AM (#27735045)
> Huh? Parent was arguing in favor of it: "PID is a damn sight more sophisticated", "even rudimentary control theory is an improvement".

You clearly failed to read (and quote) what OP said, and therefore understand his point.

Please pay attention to OP's point that PID is more sophisticated with the current state of affairs, which don't even qualify as bang bang controllers.

The OP quite clearly and unambiguously stated that "Even rudimentary control theory is an improvement."

Just because you feel the need to one-up other people's work that does not mean it is ok you distort and strawman the points they made.