Method, System and Apparatus for Managing, Modeling, Predicting, Allocating and Utilizing Resources and Bottlenecks in a Computer Network

• US 20090300173A1
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dell Software, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Panov, Sergey, Bakman, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 8,903,983 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3452 Performance evaluation by statistical analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/149 for prediction of maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]

Abstract

A method and apparatus for managing, modeling, predicting, allocating and utilizing resources and bottlenecks in a computer network managing, predicting and displaying of capacity, allocating and utilizing of resources, as well as actual and potential performance-degrading resource shortages in a computer network, is provided. Specifically, exemplary implementations of the present invention provide a method, system and apparatus for calculating, detecting, predicting, and presenting resource allocation, utilization, capacity bottlenecks and availability information, in a computer network, particularly in a virtualized computer environment.

Claims

1. A method for managing utilization of resources on a computer network, the method comprising:

identifying at least one computing object utilizing resources on a computer network;

obtaining first data indicative of at least one of current and historical utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object; and

generating second data indicative of future utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object based on the first data,

wherein the method is computer implemented.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selectively generating a notification based on at least one criteria associated with at least one of the first and second data.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

predicting at least one of performance and utilization of the resources on the computer network, wherein the utilization comprises at least one of information indicative of resource capacity bottlenecks, resource capacity availability and computing objects utilizing the resources.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the computing objects comprise virtual machines associated with the computer network.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the information indicative of the resource capacity availability comprises an indication of availability on the computer network of at least one of hosts, clusters and resource pools.

6. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

migrating computing objects from one resource to another based on the predicting.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the migrating comprises assigning computing objects to resources to optimize the utilization of the resources on the computer network.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

scheduling migration of computing objects from one resource to another based on the predicting, wherein the migrating of the computing objects from one resource to another is performed according to said scheduling.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying, obtaining and generating are selectively repeated,

the method further comprising selectively monitoring and evaluating the current, historical and future utilization of the resources.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining comprises obtaining of the first data for a first time period, and the generating comprises generating of the second data for a second time period.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein at least one of the first and second time periods is selectable via a user interface.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the graphical user interface comprises a graphic object indicative of the at least one of the first and second time period and allowing selection of the at least one of the first and second time period, or of a specified time.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the resources comprise at least one of a central processing unit, a memory unit, a storage unit, and an input/output unit.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one computing object comprises at least one virtual object.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer network comprises a virtual environment.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein the generating of the notification comprises providing at least one of a display via a graphical user interface, a report and an alert,

wherein the notification comprises information indicative of the computing object and utilization of the resources associated with the computing object.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the generating of the notification comprises:

communicating of the notification to one or more recipients via at least one of an internet, an extranet, a wireless connection, a cellular network, and a wired connection.

18. The method of claim 16, where the generating of the notification comprises at least one of:

generating the notification based on the first data, the at least one criteria comprising a threshold associated with the first data;

generating the notification based on the second data, the at least one criteria comprising a threshold associated with the second data; and

predicting at least one of performance and utilization of the resources on the computer network and generating the notification based on the predicting.

19. The method of claim 2, further comprising selectively modifying at least on of a content of the notification and a timing of the notification.

28. The method of claim 3, wherein bottleneck information comprises at least one of performance constraints, resource slowdown and resource overutilization in the computer network.

20. A method for analyzing resource utilization in a computer network, the method comprising:

monitoring resource utilization by at least one computing object utilizing resources on a computer network;

generating resource availability information related to the at least one computing object;

generating resource bottleneck information related to the at least one computing object; and

generating resource utilization trend information related to the at least one computing object;

wherein the method is computer implemented.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the computing object comprises at least one of a host, a cluster and a resource pool in the computer network.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the computing object comprises a virtualized computing object.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the resource comprises at least one of a central processing unit (CPU), memory, storage and disk input/output (I/O).

24. The method of claim 20, wherein the bottleneck is indicative of at least one of a current resource bottleneck and a future resource bottleneck.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

selectively generating a notification based on at least one criteria associated with at least one of the resource utilization, resource availability, resource bottleneck and resource utilization trend.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the generating of the resource bottleneck information comprises:

identifying a prediction time period for predicting potential future bottlenecks; and

generating future resource bottleneck information based on the resource utilization trend over a specified historical time period.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the method further comprises:

determining a confidence level of the future resource bottleneck information.

29. The method of claim 20, wherein the generating of the resource availability information comprises

generating a mapping of the at least one computing object and the at least one computing resource;

and

identifying at least one available resource for the computing object.

30. The method of claim 25, wherein the at lease one criteria comprises a threshold, and the generating of the notification comprises generating an alert when the resource utilization trend indicates exceeding of the threshold.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the at least one threshold provides at least one parameter for continuously monitoring the resource utilization trend.

32. The method of claim 25, wherein the at least one criteria is user defined.

43. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

determining utilization of resources on a computing network based on at least one of the resource utilization, availability, bottleneck and utilization trend information;

providing at least one option for modifying parameters affecting utilization of the resources; and

selectively executing the at least one option

wherein the method comprises determining and outputting information comprising identification of parameters affecting the resources for virtual machines.

44. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

determining which of the resources of virtual machines are not-used and/or are under-used; and

providing a notification comprising information indicative of the not-used and/or under-used resources for at least one virtual machine,

wherein parameters for assessing whether at least one of the resources is not-used or under-used are selectively set during an initialization.

45. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

receiving capacity modeling design information comprising parameters descriptive of a resource for at least one virtual machine;

obtaining constraints for analyzing the capacity modeling design information;

storing the capacity modeling design information;

presenting the capacity modeling design information; and

validating the capacity modeling design applicability for virtual machines.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein designing a model comprises at least one of generating a new capacity model, altering and/or updating an existing capacity model and/or validating alterations to an existing capacity model.

47. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

providing user selectable objects for performing management of the resources for virtual machines, wherein the objects provide for management functions of the resources for the virtual machines.

33. A method for monitoring utilization trends of a computing object utilizing at least one resource in a computer network, the method comprising

continuously monitoring information indicative of resource utilization by computing objects in a computer network;

selectively presenting the monitored information via graphical user interface; and

interactively manipulating the presented information to calculate and present additional information indicative of future resource utilization based on the monitored information.

34. The method of claim 33 further comprising identifying utilization bottlenecks of the computing resources in the computer network based on the monitored information.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein the monitored information comprises data indicative of past and current utilization of the computing resource.

36. The method of claim 35 further comprising identifying at least one future utilization bottleneck of the computing resources in the computer network, wherein the identifying of the at least one future utilization bottleneck comprises predicting utilization trends based at least on the monitored information.

37. An apparatus comprising a computing system for managing utilization of resources on a computer network, the computing system executing sets of instructions comprising:

a first set of instruction for identifying at least one computing object utilizing resources on a computer network;

a second set of instruction for obtaining first data indicative of at least one of current and historical utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object; and

a third set of instruction for generating second data indicative of future utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object based on the first data.

38. A system comprising:

a computer network; and

a computing system for managing utilization of resources on the computer network, the computing system executing sets of instructions comprising;

a first set of instruction for identifying at least one computing object utilizing resources on a computer network;

a second set of instruction for obtaining first data indicative of at least one of current and historical utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object; and

a third set of instruction for generating second data indicative of future utilization of the resources by the at least one computing object based on the first data.

39. A graphical user interface (GUI) for managing and allocating computing resources in a computer network, the GUI comprising:

a first interface for mapping at least one computing object with at least one computing resource;

a second interface providing information indicative of utilization of the at least one computing resource in a computer network; and

a third interface providing information indicative of utilization trends for the at least one computing resources,

wherein the GUI is computer generated.

40. The GUI of claim 39, wherein the GUI comprises a graphical window frame comprising sub-frames presenting at least the first, second and third interfaces.

41. A graphical user interface (GUI) for allowing predictive analysis of computing objects utilizing resources in a computer network, the GUI comprising:

a user accessible graphical object allowing a user to specify a time period with a range of time periods; and

a graphical display of resource utilization information for computing objects in a computer network,

wherein the user accessible graphical object is displayed with the resource utilization information, and

wherein the GUI is computer implemented.

42. The GUI of claim 41, wherein the user accessible graphical object is activated by an interface receiving instructions from a user, the interface comprising a graphical marker illustrating instructions received from a user via at least one of a computer mouse interface device, a keyboard interface device, a touchpad interface unit, a voice activated interface unit and any interface device configured to receive instructions from a user.

48. A method for interactive design and validation of a model of resources in a computer network, the method comprising:

receiving model design information for designing a model of at least one resource in the computer network;

obtaining constraints for analyzing the model design information;

storing the modeling design information; and

presenting the modeling design information;

wherein the method is computer implemented.

49. A method for making recommendations for utilization of resources for virtual machines, the method comprising:

determining utilization of at least one resource on a computing network;

providing a recommendation for the utilization of the at least one resources; and

selectively performing the recommendation for the utilization of the resources, wherein the method is computer implemented.

50. A method for managing waste and utilization of resources on a computing network, the method comprising:

determining information indicative of resources of virtual machines that are not-used and/or are under-used; and

providing notification based on the determining of the not-used and/or under-used resource for at least one virtual machine,

wherein parameters for assessing whether at least one of the resources is not-used or under-used are selectively set during an initialization