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We provide an overview of the joint research at HP Labs and University of Michigan in the past few years, where control theory was applied to automated resource and service level management in data centers. We highlight the key benefits of a control-theoretic approach for systems research, and present specific examples from our experience of designing adaptive resource control systems where this approach worked well. In addition, we outline the main limitations of this approach, and discuss the lessons learned from our experience.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/1496909.1496922","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2009,1,29]],"date-time":"2009-01-29T13:48:36Z","timestamp":1233236916000},"page":"62-69","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":74,"title":["What does control theory bring to systems research?"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"43","author":[{"given":"Xiaoyun","family":"Zhu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA"}]},{"given":"Mustafa","family":"Uysal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA"}]},{"given":"Zhikui","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA"}]},{"given":"Sharad","family":"Singhal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA"}]},{"given":"Arif","family":"Merchant","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA"}]},{"given":"Pradeep","family":"Padala","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI"}]},{"given":"Kang","family":"Shin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2009,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/71.980028"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","volume-title":"Feedback performance control in software services","author":"Abdelzaher T.F.","unstructured":"Abdelzaher , T.F. , Stankovic , J.A. , Lu , C. , Zhang , R. , and Lu , Y . 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