Sizing of one or more jobs within one or more time windows

• US 10,552,220 B2
• Filed: 09/29/2015
• Issued: 02/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Willis, Tomas Charles Nelson, Qin, Yinghua
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Labud, Jonathan R
• Application Number:
  US14/869,758
• Publication Number:
  US 20170031715A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,589 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/485 Resource constraint
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/0062 Bandwidth consumption reduction during transfers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/46 Multiprogramming arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals

Abstract

Aspects of the present invention provide systems and methods that ascertain appropriate time windows for when a task or tasks are best suited to be performed and also for appropriately sizing the number of tasks so that they can be completed within a window or windows. In embodiments, a system for estimating a system resource comprises a component selection system configured to receive a selection of one or more components and/or one or more metrics to be monitored. In embodiments, an analyzer uses at least some of the gathered data to determine one or more resource capacity windows for performing a task or tasks and determines an appropriate job size or sizes for scheduling the tasks to be performed within the one or more resource capacity windows.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to schedule one or more computer-related tasks, the method comprising:

receiving a selection of one or more components from among a plurality of components of a system about which data regarding one or more metrics of a system resource are to be collected, wherein the plurality of components of the system include at least one storage component;

gathering data regarding the one or more metrics related to the system resource, including the at least one storage component, for the selected one or more components of the system;

using at least some of the gathered data to identify a window for performing a task or tasks that affects the system resource;

computing a resource capacity of the at least one storage component for the identified window, wherein computing the resource capacity for the identified window comprises computing a capacity for the identified window by taking a width of the identified window in time multiplied by a resource capacity height calculated as a difference between an identified low value of a metric and an identified high value of the metric;

selecting a set of one or more tasks such that a computed estimate for completing the set of one or more tasks is equal to or less than the resource capacity for the window; and

scheduling execution of the set of one or more tasks to be performed during the identified window.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring the one or more components with one or more monitoring systems; and

gathering data for the one or more metrics for the one or more components.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 further comprising:

generating one or more displays for presentation on a user interface device that depicts as a function of time the one or more metrics associated with the one or more components.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein selecting the set of one or more tasks such that the computed estimate for completing the set of one or more tasks is equal to or less than the resource capacity for the window comprises:

identifying an estimated period of time required to perform the set of one or more tasks as a function of the one or more metrics and a loading for each component associated with the set of one or more tasks.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the identified low value is a threshold value, which is at or above values of a set of the gathered data.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the identified high value is below the maximum capacity of the system resource.

7. A system, comprising:

a selection system configured to receive a selection of one or more components from among a plurality of components of a system or one or more metrics related to a system resource to be monitored, wherein the plurality of components of the system include at least one storage component;

a monitoring system that gathers data regarding the one or more metrics related to the system resource, including the at least one storage component, for one or more system components;

a window analysis system that receives the gathered data and uses at least some of the gathered data to identify a window for performing a task or tasks that affects the system resource;

an estimate system that receives the identified window and computes a resource capacity of the at least one storage component for the identified window, wherein the estimate system is configured to compute the resource capacity for the identified window by taking a width of the identified window in time multiplied by a resource capacity height calculated as a difference between an identified low value of a metric and an identified high value of the metric; and

a package system that facilitates selection of a set of one or more tasks such that a computed estimate for completing the set of one or more tasks is equal to or less than the resource capacity for the window.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the package system is further configured to schedule execution of the set of one or more tasks to be performed during a window corresponding to the identified window.

9. The system of claim 7 further comprising a modelling system configured to model the selected one or more components or the one or more metrics to generate a modelled estimate of usage data that is used as the gathered data.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the package system is further configured to facilitate selection of the set of one or more tasks by automatically identifying a plurality of estimated periods of time during which a task or tasks can be performed as a function of the one or more metrics.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the package system is configured to generate one or more user interfaces for display on a user interface that depicts available tasks to be completed and their associated capacity to facilitate a user selecting one or more tasks to be added or removed from the set of one or more tasks to be performed during the identified window.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein the selection system is further configured to:

detect each of a set of available components and/or metrics;

generate a display showing the set of available components and/or metrics; and

receive a user selection of the one or more components or the one or more metrics.

13. The system of claim 7 wherein the identified low value is a threshold value, which is at or above values of a set of the gathered data and the identified high value is below the maximum capacity of the system resource.

14. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a selection of one or more components from among a plurality of components of a system about which data regarding one or more metrics of a system resource are to be collected, wherein the plurality of components of the system include at least one storage component;

gathering data regarding the one or more metrics of the system resource, including the at least one storage component, for the selected one or more components of the system;

using at least some of the gathered data to determine a window for performing a task or tasks related to the system resource;

computing a resource capacity of the at least one storage component for the identified window, wherein computing the resource capacity for the identified window comprises computing a capacity for the identified window by taking a width of the identified window in time multiplied by a resource capacity height calculated as a difference between an identified low value of a metric and an identified high value of the metric; and

selecting a set of one or more tasks such that a computed estimate for completing the set of one or more tasks is equal to or less than a capacity window.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising:

scheduling execution of the set of one or more tasks to be performed during a corresponding capacity window.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 wherein selecting the set of one or more tasks such that the computed estimate for completing the set of one or more tasks is equal to or less than the capacity window comprises:

identifying an estimated period of time required to perform the set of one or more tasks as a function of the one or more metrics.