Dynamically Resizing A Virtual Machine Container

• US 20090158275A1
• Filed: 10/31/2008
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2007
• 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: Zhang, Alex, Kelly, Terence, Liu, Xue, Stewart, Christopher, Zhu, Xiaoyun, Singhal, Sharad, Wang, Zhikui
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,835 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• 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

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention pertain to dynamically resizing a virtual machine container. According to one embodiment, an optimal utilization is determined based on a desired performance for a multi-tiered application and transaction mix information that describes a mix of transactions that result from executing the multi-tiered application. Automatic modification of an amount of a physical resource a virtual machine container is entitled to for executing a particular application component associated with the multi-tiered application is enabled where the amount is automatically modified based on the optimal utilization.

Claims

1. A method of dynamically resizing a virtual machine container, the method comprising:

determining an optimal utilization based on a desired performance for a multi-tiered application and transaction mix information that describes a mix of transactions that result from executing the multi-tiered application; and

enabling automatic modification of an amount of a physical resource a virtual machine container is entitled to for executing a particular application component associated with the multi-tiered application, wherein the amount is automatically modified based on the optimal utilization.

2. The method as recited by claim 1, further comprising:

determining different optimal utilizations for two or more application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

3. The method as recited by claim 2, wherein the determining of the different optimal utilizations further comprises:

minimizing a cost of resources to determine the different optimal utilizations for the two or more application components.

4. The method as recited by claim 1, further comprising:

using the same optimal utilization for all of the application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

5. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the optimal utilization is an uncorrected optimal utilization and wherein the method further comprises:

determining a correction term based on the difference between the desired performance and a measured performance;

determining a corrected optimal utilization based on the correction term and the uncorrected optimal utilization; and

using the corrected optimal utilization to enable automatic modification of the amount of the physical resource.

6. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the enabling of the automatic modification of the amount further comprises:

determining the amount of the physical resource based at least in part on a ratio of physical resource consumption and physical resource entitlement.

7. A system for of dynamically resizing a virtual machine container, the system comprising:

a resizing-virtual-machine-containers-for-a-multi-tiered-application-optimal-utilization-determiner configured for determining an optimal utilization based on a desired performance for a multi-tiered application and transaction mix information that describes a mix of transactions that result from executing the multi-tiered application; and

a virtual-machine-containers-for-a-multi-tiered-application-automatic-resource-allocation-modification-enabler configured for enabling automatic modification of an amount of a physical resource a virtual machine container is entitled to for executing a particular application component associated with the multi-tiered application, wherein the amount is automatically modified based on the optimal utilization.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

determining different optimal utilizations for two or more application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

using the same optimal utilization for all of the application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the optimal utilization is an uncorrected optimal utilization and wherein the system further comprises a feedback controller configured for determining a corrected optimal utilization based on the desired performance, a measured performance and the uncorrected optimal utilization.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the physical resource is selected from a group consisting of central processing unit, memory, storage, and bandwidth.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the resizing-virtual-machine-containers-for-a-multi-tiered-application-optimal-utilization-determiner is a part of a feed-forward controller.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein performance is response time for a client that requests transactions with the multi-tiered application.

13. The system of 7, wherein the desired performance is a service level objective from a service level agreement.

15. A computer-usable medium having computer-readable program code embodied therein for causing a computer system to perform a method of dynamically resizing a virtual machine container, the method comprising:

using a queueing model to determine an uncorrected optimal utilization based on a desired performance for a multi-tiered application and transaction mix information that describes a mix of transactions that result from executing a plurality of application components associated with the multi-tiered application; and

determining a corrected optimal utilization based on the desired application-level performance, a measured application-level performance and the uncorrected optimal utilization; and

enabling automatic modification of an amount of a physical resource that a virtual machine container is entitled to for executing a particular application component associated with the multi-tiered application, wherein the amount is automatically modified based on the corrected optimal utilization.

16. The computer-usable medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable program code embodied therein causes a computer system to perform the method, and wherein the enabling of the automatic modification further comprises:

determining a new amount of the physical resource based at least in part on a ratio of a previous amount of a physical resource that the virtual machine container was consuming over a previous amount of the physical resource that the virtual machine container was entitled to.

17. The computer-usable medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable program code embodied therein causes a computer system to perform the method, and wherein the method further comprises:

determining different optimal utilizations for two or more application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

18. The computer-usable medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable program code embodied therein causes a computer system to perform the method, and wherein the method further comprises:

using the same optimal utilization for all of the application components associated with the multi-tiered application.

19. The computer-usable medium of claim 15, wherein the determining of the uncorrected optimal utilization is performed by a feed-forward controller and the determining of the corrected optimal utilization is performed by a feedback controller.

20. The computer-usable medium of claim 15, wherein the desired performance is a service level objective from a service level agreement.