System and method for associating workload management definitions with computing containers

• US 20060136928A1
• Filed: 12/21/2004
• Published: 06/22/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Romero, Francisco, Turicchi, Thomas Edwin Jr., Miller, Troy Don, Jordan, Gregory D., Crawford, Isom Lawrence Jr.
• Granted Patent: US 7,752,624 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/105
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system

Abstract

In one embodiment, a system comprises a plurality of computing containers having processing resources for executing software workloads, a plurality of management processes for controlling access to the processing resources according to workload policy definitions, a data container for storing a plurality of workload policy definitions and associations between the plurality of workload policy definitions and the plurality of computing containers, and a configuration process for communicating workload policy definitions from the data container to the plurality of management processes.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a plurality of computing containers having processing resources for executing software workloads;

a plurality of management processes for controlling access to said processing resources according to workload policy definitions;

a data container for storing a plurality of workload policy definitions and associations between said plurality of workload policy definitions and said plurality of computing containers; and

a configuration process for communicating workload policy definitions from said data container to said plurality of management processes.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a user interface process for managing workload policy definitions.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said user interface process is operable to receive input from a user to create workload policy definitions.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein said user interface process receives input from a user to modify previously stored workload policy definitions.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein said configuration process is operable to autonomously communicate updated workload policy definitions to said plurality of management processes upon modification.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein each of said plurality of workload policy definitions identifies one of a plurality of workload management algorithms.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein each of said plurality of workload policy definitions comprises at least one attribute defining an amount of a resource for allocation to a computing container.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein said amount represents a share of a total amount of available processor resources.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein said amount represents a minimum amount of processor resources.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein said amount represents a maximum amount of processor resources.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein said amount represents an amount of processor resources subject to immediately reclamation by a computing container.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein said plurality of management processes maintain at least one container-specific attribute of workload policy definitions.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein said container-specific attribute stores utilization information associated with a respective computing container.

14. A method, comprising:

maintaining a data container that includes a plurality of computer container definitions, a plurality of workload management definitions, and associations between said plurality of computing container definitions and said plurality of workload management definitions;

operating a plurality of management processes for performing resource allocation operations associated with a plurality of computing containers instantiated according to said plurality of computer container definitions; and

communicating changes to said plurality of workload management definitions in said data container to said plurality of management processes.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

communicating changes to said associations in said data container to said plurality of management processes.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein said associations include an association linking a single workload policy definition to multiple computer container definitions.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein said workload management definitions include administrator created definitions.

18. The method of claim 14 wherein said workload management definitions include default definitions.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

receiving data indicating that activation of an identified workload management definition on at least one computer container; and

communicating a message to a management process associated with said computer container to begin allocation resource operations according to said workload management definition.

20. The method of claim 14 wherein each workload management definition identifies one of a plurality of workload management algorithms.