Dynamic resource allocation for disparate application performance requirements

• US 20070198982A1
• Filed: 02/21/2006
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte., Ltd. (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Merkin, Aaron, Schwartz, William, Franke, Jeffery, Gibson, Gregg, Bolan, Joseph, Dayar, Zeynep, Lardinois, Shane
• Application Number:
  US11/359,253
• Publication Number:
  US 20070198982A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to dynamic computing resource allocation, and provide a method, system and computer program product for dynamic resource allocation for disparate application performance requirements. In one embodiment of the invention, a resource allocation data processing system can include a shared resource pool including resources and a resource configurator coupled to the shared resource pool. The system further can include a service processor coupled to the resource configurator, wherein the service processor can include an application programming interface (API) exposing methods for commanding the resource configurator to configure the resources in the shared resource pool.

Claims

1. A resource allocation data processing system comprising:

a shared resource pool comprising a plurality of resources;

a resource configurator coupled to the shared resource pool;

a service processor coupled to the resource configurator, the service processor comprising an application programming interface (API) exposing methods for commanding the resource configurator to configure the resources in the shared resource pool; and

,

resource provisioning/workload management logic comprising program code enabled to configure the resources through the service processor to support both mission critical applications through a high availability configuration of the resources, and performance critical applications through a high performance configuration of the resources.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the resources are hardware resources.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the hardware resources comprise at least one power supply.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the hardware resources comprise memory modules.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the hardware resources comprise at least one cooling source.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the resource configurator is a basic input output system (BIOS) for a host computing platform hosting the hardware resources in the shared resource pool.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the BIOS comprises a plurality of selectable availability modes for the hardware resources.

8. The system of claim 3, wherein the resource configurator is an oversubscription policy manager for resources in the shared resource pool.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the availability modes comprises at least one mode for configurable memory modules selected from the group consisting of a mirrored mode for hot replace, a hot add mode of segmented memory arrays, a performance mode and a thirty-two (32) error correction code (ECC) mode.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the availability modes are associated with pre-requisite conditions limiting a selection of any one of the modes, the pre-requisite conditions comprising at least one condition selected from the group consisting of available ports and an identical configuration of memory modules.

11. A method for dynamically configuring resources in a shared resource pool, the method comprising:

querying a service processor for the shared resource pool to obtain a selection of available configurations for the resources in the shared resource pool;

determining resource requirements for a mission critical application to be supported by resources in the shared resource pool; and

,

selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application, comprises selecting an oversubscription policy for the resources in order to support high availability requirements determined for the mission critical application.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application, comprises:

selecting a high availability configuration for the resources responsive to determining that the resources in the resource pool are able to support the resource requirements for the mission critical application; and

,

otherwise selecting a high performance configuration for the resources responsive to determining that the resource in the resource pool are not able to support the resource requirements for the mission critical application.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising repeating the querying, determining and selecting steps iteratively responsive to changes in resource requirements for the mission critical application.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising initially selecting a high availability oversubscription policy for all of the resources in the shared resource pool.

16. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium embodying computer usable program code for dynamically configuring resources in a shared resource pool, the computer program product comprising:

computer usable program code for querying a service processor for the shared resource pool to obtain a selection of available configurations for the resources in the shared resource pool;

computer usable program code for determining resource requirements for a mission critical application to be supported by resources in the shared resource pool; and

,

computer usable program code for selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the computer usable program code for selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application, comprises computer usable program code for selecting an oversubscription policy for the resources in order to support high availability requirements determined for the mission critical application.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the computer usable program code for selecting one of the available configurations in order to support the resource requirements determined for the mission critical application, comprises:

computer usable program code for selecting a high availability configuration for the resources responsive to determining that the resources in the resource pool are able to support the resource requirements for the mission critical application; and

,

computer usable program code for otherwise selecting a high performance configuration for the resources responsive to determining that the resource in the resource pool are not able to support the resource requirements for the mission critical application.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, further comprising repeating the querying, determining and selecting steps iteratively responsive to changes in resource requirements for the mission critical application.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, further comprising computer usable program code for initially selecting a high availability oversubscription policy for all of the resources in the shared resource pool.