Grid computing accounting and statistics management system

• US 20070078960A1
• Filed: 10/04/2005
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, Rick, Joseph, Joshy, Seaman, James, Dawson, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 8,713,179 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5032 Generating service level reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

Performance data is captured periodically from resources and groups of resources in a grid computing environment and stored in a content-addressable data repository from which it can be accessed in response to an arbitrarily complex query in regard to specifics of particular jobs or job portions, particular resources utilized, grid architecture, application environment, concurrent jobs or job portions and the like. The data repository may be distributed or divided in regard to grid environment architecture, security domains or the like and each portion or division may be implemented in a modular fashion including an accounting and statistics management module and additional modules or computing engines for performing particular desired analyses or functions. Results of such analyses or functions may be communicated to a grid workload agent (and associated modules) to improve grid management on a fine-grained basis.

Claims

1. A method of managing a grid computing environment including steps of:

performing portions of a data processing request using respective resources of said grid computing environment;

periodically storing data records from respective resources performing said portions of said data processing request, said data records corresponding to performance of respective ones of said respective resources and characteristics of said job portions;

retrieving selected data records in accordance with data stored in said data records; and

processing data retrieved in said retrieving step to produce processed performance data as historical performance statistics.

2. A method as recited in claim 1 including a further steps of managing job portion allocation based on said processed performance data.

3. A method as recited in claim 1 including a further step of estimating job run time on the grid based on historical performance analysis.

4. A method as recited in claim 1 including a further step of generating a request for proposal based on historical performance analysis.

5. A method as recited in claim 3 including a further step of determining a likelihood that a job run time can be performed within an associated historical performance statistic.

6. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein said step of periodically storing data records includes storing data records in a data repository.

7. A method as recited in claim 6 including the further step of dividing said data repository into a plurality of distributed data repositories.

8. A method as recited in claim 7 wherein said step of dividing said data repository is based on how said grid computing environment is dispersed over multiple security domains.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said step of performing portions of a data processing request include a step of determining if portions of said data processing request are application specific.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, including the further step of interrogating the grid or interrogating an application environment of the grid based on a result of said step of determining if portions of said data processing request are application specific.

11. A system for managing a grid computing environment comprising:

means for monitoring respective resources of said grid computing environment processing portions of data processing requests;

content-addressable storage means for periodically storing performance data from respective resources monitored by said means for monitoring, said performance data including data identifying a corresponding monitored respective resource and a characteristic of said job portion;

means for retrieving, on the basis of a said characteristic, and processing data stored by said content-addressable storage means to form processed performance data; and

means for managing said grid computing environment based on said processed performance data.

12. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein said means for managing said grid computing environment includes a plurality of modules for performing respective grid environment management functions including at least one of cost estimation, determination of hardware/softrware requirements, RFP processing, determination of intragrid processes, analysis of grid element financial data and historical trend analysis.

13. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein said means for managing said grid computing environment includes a module for performing a grid environment management function.

14. A system as recited in claim 11 wherein said means for retrieving and processing data includes an accounting and statistics management module.

15. A system as recited in claim 14 further including a grid workload agent wherein said accounting and statistics management module provides said processed performance data to said grid workload agent.

16. A system as recited in claim 15 further including functional modules associated with said grid workload agent to perform functions associated with said grid workload agent and wherein said accounting and statistics management module provides said processed performance data to said functional modules.