Use of metrics to control throttling and swapping in a message processing system

• US 10,338,962 B2
• Filed: 10/10/2016
• Issued: 07/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Levanoni, Yossi, Saha, Sanjib, Mehta, Bimal Kumar, Maybee, Paul, Graber, Lee B., Sriram, Balasubramanian, Musayev, Eldar Azerovich, Smith, Kevin Bowen
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair, Douglas B
• Application Number:
  US15/289,868
• Publication Number:
  US 20170024252A1
• Time in Patent Office: 995 Days
• Field of Search: 709250
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system

Abstract

A system and method of using metrics to control throttling and swapping in a message processing system is provided. A workload status of a message processing system is determined, and the system polls for a new message according to the workload status. The message processing system identifies a blocked instance and calculates an expected idle time for the blocked instance. The system dehydrates the blocked instance if the expected idle time exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Claims

1. A system comprising a processor and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:

determine a workload of the system based on performance metrics of the system;

receive a message and, in response to receiving the message, create an instance of a process or route the message to an existing instance of a process;

idle the created instance or the existing instance based on the determined workload of the system;

determine a predicted duration for the idling based on the performance metrics;

based on the predicted duration, move the idled instance out of active memory and into secondary storage associated with the system; and

update the determined workload based on updated performance metrics and said moving the idled instance out of active memory.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics are based on memory consumed by active message processing.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics are based on processing power used for active message processing.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics are based on idle time of a past process.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the performance metrics are assigned according to a predetermined criterion.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the idled instance is moved out of active memory based on whether the predicted duration exceeds a predetermined threshold.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the predetermined threshold is based on a prior idle process.

8. A method for improving the efficiency of a computing system, the method comprising:

determining, by the computing system, a workload state based on performance metrics of the computing system;

in response to receiving a message by the computing system, performing one of creating an instance of a process or routing the message to an existing instance of a process;

idling the created instance or the existing instance based on the determined workload state;

predicting a duration of said idling based on the performance metrics; and

moving the idled instance to secondary storage based on the predicted duration.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the performance metrics are based on memory consumed by active message processing.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the performance metrics are based on processing power used for active message processing.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the secondary storage is associated with a web service message processing system.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the performance metrics are based on idle time of a past process.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the performance metrics are assigned according to a predetermined criterion.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining whether the predicted duration exceeds a predetermined threshold.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the predetermined threshold is based on a prior idle process.

16. A system comprising a processor and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:

determine a workload of the system with respect to a system operating parameter based at least in part on performance data for the system;

identify a blocked instance being processed by the system;

calculate an expected idle time for the blocked instance by;

determining a length of time the blocked instance has been idle; and

generating the expected idle time based on the performance data and the length of time the blocked instance has been idle;

move the blocked instance to secondary storage if the expected idle time exceeds a threshold;

update the workload based on moving the blocked instance; and

update the threshold according to the updated workload.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the performance data comprises at least one of:

memory usage, processor power in use by the system, or assignments according to a predetermined criterion if no performance data is accessible.

18. The system of claim 16, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to poll for a new message at a frequency according to the workload, wherein the frequency is inversely proportional to the workload and, if the workload is above a predetermined limit, polling only for a new non-activation message.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the polling further comprises polling only for a new non-activation message.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the blocked instance is a first instance, and the performance data comprises a recorded idle time of a second instance.