System and Method for Load-Balancing in a Resource Infrastructure Running Application Programs

• US 20080201720A1
• Filed: 02/08/2008
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Betzler, Boas, Rost, Steffen
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,774 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration

Abstract

The idea of the present invention is to provide a challenge-response mechanism to acquire work scope split range information from the application'"'"'s Work Scope Split component of the over-utilized resource. By using the work scope split range information, the provisioning system is able to add a new resource, install a new application for that new resource, configure the new and the over-utilized resource'"'"'s application, and reconfigure the load-balancer in accordance with the work scope split range information. The present invention adds scalability to complex and stateful application programs and allows dynamic provisioning of resources for these application programs.

Claims

1. A provisioning system for a resources infrastructure with a plurality of resources running instances of application programs, comprising:

a component for monitoring computational workload of said resources;

a component for comparing the computational workload of each of said resources with a defined threshold level and initiating a challenge-response mechanism to acquire work scope split range information from said instances of said application programs when said defined threshold data is exceeded; and

a component for adding a new resource to said resource infrastructure and distributing the computational workload in accordance with the work scope split information.

2. The provisioning system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a communication link to a load-balancer to reconfigure it in accordance with the work scope split range information; and

a communication link to a resource pool which provides free resources for adding new resources, and for installing and configuring application programs thereon.

3. The provisioning system according to claim 1, wherein said challenge-response mechanism is defined by an interface provided by said instances of said application programs.

4. The provisioning system according to claim 3, wherein said application programs are stateful application programs.

5. A resource in a resource infrastructure with a plurality of resources managed by a provisioning system, wherein said resource runs an application program, wherein said application program is characterized as having a work split range component for calculating the work scope split range for the computational workload of the resource;

and

an interface component which defines a challenge-response mechanism for requesting and providing work scope split range information generated by said work split component to said provisioning system comprising a component for monitoring computational workload of said resource, a component for comparing said computational workload of said resource with a defined threshold level and for initiating a challenge-response mechanism to acquire work scope split range information from said application program when said defined threshold is exceeded, and a component for adding a new resource and for distributing the computational workload in accordance with the work scope split range information to said new resource.

6. The resource according to claim 5, wherein said application is a stateful application.

7. The resource according to claim 5, wherein said resource is a computer system.

8. A computer program product stored in the internal memory of a digital computer, containing software code to execute of a method of distributing the computational workload of a resource over at least one other resource if the product is run on the computer, the method comprising:

monitoring the computational workload on a first resource running a first instance of an application program;

automatically requesting workload split range information from said first instance if said computational workload of said first resource exceeds a defined threshold level;

calculating workload split range information for said computational workload on said first resource if said threshold is exceeded, and returning said workload split range information to said first instance of said application program; and

preparing a new instance of said application program on another resource and distributing said computational workload of said application program over said at least one other resource in accordance with said workload split range information.

9. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein the computational workload is defined by one or more performance data for said first resource.

10. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein said performance data of said first resource are provided by the resource'"'"'s operating system or by the first application instance.

11. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein said threshold level is defined by one performance parameter or by the correlation of performance parameters of said resource.

12. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein said workload split range information is calculated by using performance data of said first resource provided by the resource'"'"'s operating system or by said application instance of said first resource.

13. The computer program product according to claim 12, wherein said workload scope split range calculation comprises the steps of:

accessing one or more current performance parameters of said first resource;

adding all said performance data of all ranges of activities managed by said application instance resulting in a total workload;

calculating half of the total workload;

adding said performance data of said ranges of activities as long as half of the total workload is not exceeded and the next to the last range of activity has not been reached resulting in a first workload scope split range indication; and

returning said first workload scope split range indication and the remaining workload scope split range information as workload scope split range information.

14. The computer program product according to claim 8, wherein said workload scope split range is divided approximately in half.