System and method for dynamic resource reconfiguration using a dependency graph

• US 20040177244A1
• Filed: 03/05/2003
• Published: 09/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Murphy, Richard C., Deshpande, Shrikant, Carter, Scott M., Ornelas, Mario G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,152,157 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455

Abstract

A system and method for predicting whether a dynamic reconfiguration of a resource of a resource domain would be successful, prior to attempting the reconfiguration. A resource domain includes one or more computer resources (e.g., physical, logical and pseudo devices) and a graph management agent configured to maintain a graph representing the resources and dependencies between resources. Vertices of the graph represent resources; edges represent dependencies. A resource domain may also include a set of policies or constraints regarding resources and reconfigurations of resources. An illustrative constraint may specify that a particular resource (e.g., a multi-pathed logical device) must have a minimal number of paths (e.g., two). The graph agent identifies the effect the dynamic reconfiguration operation would have upon the resources and dependencies, and determines whether any constraints would be violated. If no constraints would be violated, the graph management agent may indicate that the reconfiguration would succeed.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating dynamic reconfiguration of computer system resources, comprising:

initializing a set of physical devices within a domain of computer resources;

creating a set of logical devices based on the physical devices;

maintaining a resource dependency graph for the domain, wherein;

each vertex of said resource dependency graph represents one of the physical or logical devices; and

each edge of said resource dependency graph represents a dependency between a first physical or logical device and a second physical or logical device; and

predicting, from said resource dependency graph, whether a first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

executing said first dynamic reconfiguration operation if said first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if said first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful, automatically executing said first dynamic reconfiguration operation.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said initializing comprises:

initializing a first physical device; and

adding to said resource dependency graph a first vertex representing said first physical device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said initializing said first physical device and said adding are performed by a device driver associated with said first physical device.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said adding is performed by a graph agent called by a device driver configured to drive operation of said first physical device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said initializing comprises:

initializing a first physical device with a first device driver; and

posting information regarding said first physical device, for use in maintaining said resource dependency graph.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said initializing comprises:

initializing a first physical device with a first device driver; and

identifying a procedure for including said first physical device in said resource dependency graph.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said creating comprises:

generating a first logical device; and

adding to said resource dependency graph a first vertex representing said first logical device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said adding is performed by a graph agent called by a generator of said first logical device.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said creating comprises:

generating a first logical device; and

posting information regarding said first logical device, for use in maintaining said resource dependency graph.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said creating comprises:

generating a first logical device; and

identifying a procedure for including said first logical device in said resource dependency graph.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said maintaining comprises:

executing a graph agent configured to;

identify the physical devices and the logical devices; and

identify dependencies involving the physical devices and the logical devices.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said maintaining comprises:

updating said resource dependency graph to reflect the creation, deletion or removal of a dependency between a first device and a second device;

wherein each of the first device and the second device is a member of one of the set of physical devices or the set of logical devices.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein:

the computer system comprises a kernel; and

said kernel comprises a graph agent configured to perform said updating.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein said updating comprises:

from said resource dependency graph, identifying said dependency between the first device and the second device;

locking one or more of the first device and the second device; and

removing one or more of the first device and the second device from the domain.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said maintaining comprises:

for each of the physical devices and each of the logical devices, executing a graph agent configured to add to said resource dependency graph a vertex corresponding to the device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said graph agent is configured to invoke a device driver associated with a first physical device.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said graph agent is configured to invoke a series of processor executable instructions associated with a first logical device.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein said predicting is performed by a graph agent configured to maintain said resource dependency graph.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said predicting comprises determining whether said first dynamic reconfiguration operation would violate any constraints associated with the domain.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a set of constraints on said resource dependency graph.

23. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method of facilitating dynamic reconfiguration of computer system resources, the method comprising:

initializing a set of physical devices within a domain of computer resources;

creating a set of logical devices based on the physical devices;

maintaining a resource dependency graph for the domain, wherein;

each vertex of said resource dependency graph represents one of the physical or logical devices; and

each edge of said resource dependency graph represents a dependency between a first physical or logical device and a second physical or logical device; and

predicting, from said resource dependency graph, whether a first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful.

24. A computer-implemented method of predicting whether a desired dynamic reconfiguration of computer resources will be successful, comprising:

assembling a graph corresponding to a resource domain, wherein each node of said graph represents a resource within the resource domain, and each edge of said graph represents a dependency between multiple resources of the resource domain;

identifying a desired dynamic reconfiguration of a first resource of the resource domain;

identifying a set of dependencies extending from the first resource;

determining whether the desired dynamic reconfiguration would violate any constraints placed on the resources of the resource domain; and

based on said determining, predicting whether the desired dynamic reconfiguration would be successful.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the desired dynamic reconfiguration comprises removing the first resource from the resource domain.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein said identifying a set of dependencies comprises:

locating a first node in said graph, wherein said first node represents the first resource; and

recursively following dependencies between the first node and other nodes of said graph.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

maintaining a set of constraints regarding resources of the resource domain.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

executing a graph agent configured to maintain said graph.

29. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method of predicting whether a desired dynamic reconfiguration of computer resources will be successful, the method comprising:

assembling a graph corresponding to a resource domain, wherein each node of said graph represents a resource within the resource domain, and each edge of said graph represents a dependency between multiple resources of the resource domain;

identifying a desired dynamic reconfiguration of a first resource of the resource domain;

identifying a set of dependencies extending from the first resource;

determining whether the desired dynamic reconfiguration would violate any constraints placed on the resources of the resource domain; and

based on said determining, predicting whether the desired dynamic reconfiguration would be successful.

30. A method of facilitating dynamic reconfiguration of computer system resources within multiple computing platforms, comprising:

initializing a first domain of physical devices within a first computing platform;

creating a first set of logical devices based on the physical devices of the first domain;

initializing a second domain of physical devices within a second computing platform;

creating a second set of logical devices based on the physical devices of the second domain;

maintaining a resource dependency graph covering the first domain and the second domain, wherein;

each vertex of said resource dependency graph represents one of the physical or logical devices of the first domain or second domain; and

each edge of said resource dependency graph represents a dependency between a first physical or logical device of the first domain or second domain and a second physical or logical device of the first domain or second domain; and

predicting, from said resource dependency graph, whether a first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein said initializing a first domain comprises:

initializing a first physical device of the first domain; and

adding to said resource dependency graph a first vertex representing said first physical device of the first domain.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein said initializing said first physical device of the first domain and said adding are performed by a device driver associated with said first physical device of the first domain.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein said adding is performed by a graph agent called by a device driver configured to drive operation of said first physical device of the first domain.

34. The method of claim 30, wherein said creating a second set of logical devices comprises:

generating a first logical device for a first physical device of the second domain; and

adding to said resource dependency graph a first node representing said first logical device.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein said adding is performed by a graph agent called by a generator of said first logical device.

36. The method of claim 30, wherein said maintaining comprises:

executing a graph agent configured to;

identify the physical devices and the logical devices of the first domain and the second domain; and

identify dependencies involving the physical devices and the logical devices of the first domain and the second domain.

37. The method of claim 30, wherein said maintaining comprises:

for each of the physical devices and each of the logical devices of the first domain and the second domain, executing a graph agent configured to add to said resource dependency graph a vertex corresponding to the device.

38. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method of facilitating dynamic reconfiguration of computer system resources within multiple computing platforms, the method comprising:

initializing a first domain of physical devices within a first computing platform;

creating a first set of logical devices based on the physical devices of the first domain;

initializing a second domain of physical devices within a second computing platform;

creating a second set of logical devices based on the physical devices of the second domain;

maintaining a resource dependency graph covering the first domain and the second domain, wherein;

each vertex of said resource dependency graph represents one of the physical or logical devices of the first domain or second domain; and

each edge of said resource dependency graph represents a dependency between a first physical or logical device of the first domain or second domain and a second physical or logical device of the first domain or second domain; and

predicting, from said resource dependency graph, whether a first dynamic reconfiguration operation is likely to be successful.

39. A platform of computer resources, comprising:

a plurality of computer resources;

a service processor configured to facilitate management of the platform;

one or more resource domains, wherein each of said resource domains is allocated one or more of the computer resources; and

within each of said resource domains, a graph agent configured to maintain a resource dependency graph representing the computer resources allocated to said resource domain.

40. The platform of claim 39, wherein said service processor is further configured to maintain a graph of the plurality of computer resources.

41. The platform of claim 39, wherein each said resource domain further comprises a set of constraints regarding allocation of the computer resources within said resource domain.

42. The platform of claim 41, wherein said graph agent of a resource domain is configured to determine whether a dynamic reconfiguration operation would violate any of said constraints of said resource domain.