Performance management in a virtual computing environment

• US 20070106769A1
• Filed: 11/04/2005
• Published: 05/10/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Liu, Lei
• Granted Patent: US 7,603,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• 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 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade

Abstract

A virtual zone management framework manages one or more virtual computing zones forming a global computing zone residing on a host computer. The virtual zone manager comprises a normalization engine, a zone probe, and an interface engine that manages each virtual computing zone residing on the host computer. The virtual zone manager manages the services operating on each virtual zone while simultaneously managing the global computing environment using probes and/or agents to gather data and zone characteristics in response to a triggering event. Once data of interest are gathered for each zone, they are normalized so as to present a consistent and compatible representation of the characteristics with respect to the other virtual computing zones. Based on a comparison and analysis of the normalized characteristics, the virtual zone manager manages each of the virtual zones within the global computing environment as well as the global computing environment itself.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for managing virtual computing zones on a host computer, the host computer being part of a computer network, the method comprising the steps of:

monitoring characteristics associated with each virtual computing zone;

normalizing characteristics of each virtual computing zone to match characteristics of a global computing zone; and

managing each virtual computing zone and the global computing zone based on normalized characteristics.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein at least one characteristic is selected from the group consisting of resource allocation and usage, service availability, service threshold, system configuration, performance level, and service level.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein monitoring 15 includes using a format selected from the group consisting of an agent based solution including RJMX, SNMP, MIB, and CMIP, and an agent-less based solution including Dtrace probe, CLI and system calls.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein managing further comprises:

identifying service level degradation on the at least one virtual zone; and

reallocating computing resources to prevent service failure.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein monitoring includes choosing a particular monitoring format matching characteristics of the at least one virtual zone being monitored.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 5 wherein the particular monitoring format is either an agent-less based passive and active tracing probes or an agent based solution.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 4 wherein reallocating computing resources includes reconfiguring computing resources for each virtual computing zone of the host computer system.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 4 wherein reallocating 5 computing resources includes integrating with network management systems to identify other host computers with available computing resources.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting data from the at least one virtual computing zone on the host computer, wherein collecting includes sampling;

normalizing data from the at least one virtual computing zone to match a centralized format for global zone management on the host computer; and

managing at least one aspect of global zone management on the host computer system based on normalized data collected from the at least one virtual computing zone.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 9 wherein managing includes controlling at least one aspect of each of the at least one virtual computing zone.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 9 wherein data includes mandatory key service indicators, service level information, and service degradation alerts.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 9 further comprising:

receiving a request from a network resource, the request being in a particular format;

normalizing the request to decouple transport specifics to further route inbound messages to specific virtual zone probes;

matching the centralized format for global zone management on the host computer with zone application or service specific metrics;

gathering data responsive to the normalized request from the at least one virtual computing zone; and

responding to the request in the particular format.

13. At least one computer-readable medium containing a computer program product for managing at least one virtual computing zone on a host computer system, the host computer being part of a computer network, the computer program product comprising:

program code for monitoring characteristics associated with each virtual computing zone;

program code for normalizing characteristics of management transport requests and characteristics of each virtual computing zone to match characteristics of a global computing zone; and

program code for managing each virtual computing zone and the global computing zone based on normalized characteristics.

14. The computer program product of claim 13 further comprising:

program code for gathering data from the at least one virtual computing zone on the host computer wherein the program code for gathering includes program code for choosing a particular gathering format matching characteristics of the at least one computing virtual zone;

program code for normalizing data from a transport specific decoupling and the at least one virtual computing zone to match a centralized format for global zone management on the host computer; and

program code for managing at least one aspect of global zone management on the host computer system based on normalized data from the at least one virtual computing zone.

15. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein the program code for managing includes;

program code for controlling at least one aspect of each of the at least one virtual computing zone;

program code for detecting service level degradation on the at least one virtual zone; and

program code for correcting computing resources to prevent service failure.

16. The computer program product of claim 14 further comprising:

program code for receiving a request from a network resource, the request being in a particular format;

program code for normalizing the request to decouple transport specifics and match the centralized format for global zone management on the host computer;

program code for gathering data responsive to the normalized request from the at least one virtual computing zone; and

program code for responding to the request in the particular format.

17. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein the particular gathering format is either an agent-less based passive and active tracing probes or an agent based solution.

18. A computer system for managing at least one virtual computing zone on a host computer system, the host computer being part of a computer network, the computer system comprising:

a software portion configured to gather data from the at least one virtual computing zone on the host computer wherein the software portion configured to gather is further configured to match characteristics of each virtual computing zone;

a software portion configured to normalize data from the at least one virtual computing zone to match a centralized format for global zone management on the host computer; and

a software portion configured to manage at least one aspect of global zone 2 5 management on the host computer system based on normalized data from the at least one virtual computing zone.

19. The computer system of claim 18 further comprising:

a software portion configured to receive a request from a network resource, the request being in a particular format;

a software portion configured to normalize the request to match the centralized format for global zone management on the host computer;

a software portion configured to gather data responsive to the normalized request from the at least one virtual computing zone; and

a software portion configured to respond to the request in the particular format.

20. The computer system of claim 18 wherein software portion configured to gather uses either an agent-less based passive and active tracing probes or an agent based solution.