Method, system and computer program product for an automatic resource management of a virtual machine

• US 20060136913A1
• Filed: 12/07/2005
• Published: 06/22/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sameske, Volker
• Granted Patent: US 7,793,288 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities
• 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 method for an automatic resource management of a virtual machine located as a layer between a physical hardware and at least one guest system, wherein the virtual machine provides an independent virtual hardware for each guest system running on the physical hardware. A data set is provided to the virtual machine by a guest system to be installed, comprising at least information about the minimum system requirements of the guest system. The virtual machine automatically decides, using the information comprised in the data set, if the minimum system requirements of said guest system can be provided by a virtual hardware generated by the virtual machine. At least the requested minimum system requirements of the guest system are provided by the virtual machine that fulfills at least the minimum system requirements of the guest system.

Claims

1. Method for an automatic resource management of a virtual machine located as a layer between a physical hardware and at least one guest system, wherein the virtual machine provides an independent virtual hardware for each guest system running on the physical hardware, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a data set to the virtual machine by a guest system to be installed, comprising at least an information about the minimum system requirements of said guest system,

automatically deciding by the virtual machine using the information comprised in said data set, if the minimum system requirements of said guest system can be provided by a virtual hardware generated by said virtual machine,

if at least the requested minimum system requirements of said guest system can be provided by the virtual machine, generating virtual hardware by said virtual machine that fulfills at least the minimum system requirements of said guest system and

providing said virtual hardware to said guest system by said virtual machine.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein said data set further comprises an information about the optimum system requirements of said guest system, wherein the virtual machine is provided with an information about the workload of the guest system by the guest system itself and provides a virtual hardware to the guest system up to its optimum system requirements by generating additional virtual hardware according to the information about the optimum system requirements and adding said additional virtual hardware to the virtual hardware already provided to the guest system.

3. Method according to claim 2, wherein the virtual machine provides an interface for the guest system to send load-dependent hardware requests to the virtual machine.

4. Method according to claim 2, wherein the guest systems feature individual degrees of priority that are provided to the virtual machine wherein the generation of additional virtual hardware by the virtual machine to a specific guest system is dependant on load and priority degree of said guest system.

5. Method according to claim 1,

wherein the data set is located at a defined position in the code of the guest system.

6. Method according to claim 1,

wherein said data set is located in the image of the guest system.

7. Method according to claim 1,

wherein the data set is located anywhere in the code of the guest system and a pointer referring to said data set is located at a defined position in said code.

8. Method according to claim 1,

wherein the data set is located anywhere in the code of the guest system and the pointer referring to said data set is located in the image of the guest system.

9. Method according to claim 1,

wherein the data set is not provided by the guest system but by the administrator before installing the guest system.

10. Method according to claim 1,

wherein the data set is not provided by the guest system but by a requirement table included in the code of the virtual machine.

14. A computer program product stored on a computer usable medium comprising computer readable program means for causing a computer to perform the method of claim 1, when said computer program product is executed on a computer.

11. Computer system comprising:

means to provide a virtual machine providing a virtual hardware to at least one guest system;

means to get information about at least the minimum system requirements of said guest system;

means that enable the virtual machine to automatically decide, if the minimum system requirements of said guest system can be provided by a virtual hardware provided by said virtual machine; and

means-to provide said virtual hardware by said virtual machine to said guest system.

12. Computer system according to claim 11, further comprising:

means to get information about the optimum system requirements of the guest system;

means to get information about the workload of said guest system;

means to automatically decide according to the workload, if the guest system gets additional virtual hardware up to the optimum system requirements or not; and

means to be suited to provide additional virtual hardware to the guest system

13. Computer according to claim 12, further comprising:

means to get information about a degree of priority of said guest system; and

means to automatically decide according to the degree of priority and according to the workload, if the guest system gets additional virtual hardware up to the optimum system requirements or not.