SYSTEM RESOURCE MANAGEMENT MODERATOR PROTOCOL

• US 20100043005A1
• Filed: 08/12/2008
• Published: 02/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Fontenot, Nathan, Schopp, Joel H., Poppe, Monty C., Ahuja, Manish
• Granted Patent: US 9,817,702 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• 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
• 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

A method, system, and computer program product for managing system resources within a data processing system. A resource management moderator (RMM) utility assigns a priority to each application within a group of management applications, facilitated by a RMM protocol. When a request for control of a particular resource is received, the RMM utility compares the priority of the requesting application with the priority of the controlling application. Control of the resource is ultimately given to the management application with the greater priority. If the resource is not under control of an application, control of the resource may be automatically granted to the requester. Additionally, the RMM utility provides support for legacy applications via a “manager of managers” application. The RMM utility registers the “manager of managers” application with the protocol and enables interactions (to reconfigure and enable legacy applications) between the “manager of managers” application and legacy applications.

Claims

1. In a data processor, a method comprising:

assigning a priority to a management application;

receiving a request for a control of a group of resources, from a management application;

determining whether the group of resources is under control of another management application; and

initiating a determination of whether control is granted to a management application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said initiating further comprises:

determining whether the resource priority of a requester is greater than the priority of current controller;

assigning control of a resource group to a management application based on one or more of;

when a plurality of applications contend for control of the resource group, granting control to the application with the higher priority;

when a single application contends for control of the resource group via a request, granting control to the application, wherein the resource group is not controlled by another application at a time current to the request; and

factoring a degree of independence of the resource group, for which one or more application contends with respect to other resource groups;

when control is assigned to the management application, requesting that the current controller gives up control of the group of resources;

detecting when the management application currently controlling the group of resources relinquishes control of the group of resources;

when the controlling management application relinquishes control of the group of resources, notifying a protocol layer; and

initiating control of the group of resources by a requesting management application following an assignment of control of the group of resources.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

defining individual system resources via the protocol, wherein said resources include entitled capacity, virtual processors, shared processors, capped processor partition, uncapped processor partition, memory, and I/O adapters; and

placing groups of the individual system resources into a single group within a plurality of groups, wherein said groups include processor capacity, memory capacity, and input/output bandwidth.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing support for legacy applications via a “

manager of managers”

application;

registering the “

manager of managers”

application with the protocol; and

enabling an interaction between the “

manager of managers”

application and the legacy applications.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said enabling further comprises:

executing one or more of;

a reconfiguration of information associated with a legacy application;

an enabling of the legacy application;

a disabling of the legacy application; and

performing a shutdown of the legacy application.

6. A data processing system comprising:

a processor;

a memory system;

a utility which when executed on said processor provides the functions of;

assigning a priority to a management application;

receiving a request for a control of a group of resources, from a management application;

determining whether the group of resources is under control of another management application; and

initiating a determination of whether control is granted to a management application.

7. The data processing system of claim 6, wherein said functions for initiating further comprises functions for:

determining whether the resource priority of a requester is greater than the priority of current controller;

assigning control of a resource group to a management application based on one or more of;

when a plurality of applications contend for control of the resource group, granting control to the application with the higher priority;

when a single application contends for control of the resource group via a request, granting control to the application, wherein the resource group is not controlled by another application at a time current to the request; and

factoring a degree of independence of the resource group, for which one or more application contends with respect to other resource groups;

when control is assigned to the management application, requesting that the current controller gives up control of the group of resources;

detecting when the management application currently controlling the group of resources relinquishes control of the group of resources;

when the controlling management application relinquishes control of the group of resources, notifying a protocol layer; and

initiating control of the group of resources by a requesting management application following an assignment of control of the group of resources.

8. The data processing system of claim 6 further comprising functions for:

defining individual system resources via the protocol, wherein said resources include entitled capacity, virtual processors, shared processors, capped processor partition, uncapped processor partition, memory, and I/O adapters; and

placing groups of the individual system resources into a single group within a plurality of groups, wherein said groups include processor capacity, memory capacity, and input/output bandwidth.

9. The data processing system of claim 6 further comprising functions for:

providing support for legacy applications via a “

manager of managers”

application;

registering the “

manager of managers”

application with the protocol; and

enabling an interaction between the “

manager of managers”

application and the legacy applications.

10. The data processing system of claim 9, wherein said functions for enabling further comprises functions for:

executing one or more of;

a reconfiguration of information associated with a legacy application;

an enabling of the legacy application;

a disabling of the legacy application; and

performing a shutdown of the legacy application.

11. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium; and

program code on said computer readable medium that when executed within a data communication device, said program code provides the functionality of;

assigning a priority to a management application;

receiving a request for a control of a group of resources, from a management application;

determining whether the group of resources is under control of another management application; and

initiating a determination of whether control is granted to a management application.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein said program code for initiating further comprises program code for:

determining whether the resource priority of a requester is greater than the priority of current controller;

assigning control of a resource group to a management application based on one or more of;

when a plurality of applications contend for control of the resource group, granting control to the application with the higher priority;

when a single application contends for control of the resource group via a request, granting control to the application, wherein the resource group is not controlled by another application at a time current to the request; and

factoring a degree of independence of the resource group, for which one or more application contends with respect to other resource groups;

when control is assigned to the management application, requesting that the current controller gives up control of the group of resources;

detecting when the management application currently controlling the group of resources relinquishes control of the group of resources;

when the controlling management application relinquishes control of the group of resources, notifying a protocol layer; and

initiating control of the group of resources by a requesting management application following an assignment of control of the group of resources.

13. The computer program product of claim 11 further comprising program code for:

defining individual system resources via the protocol, wherein said resources include entitled capacity, virtual processors, shared processors, capped processor partition, uncapped processor partition, memory, and I/O adapters; and

placing groups of the individual system resources into a single group within a plurality of groups, wherein said groups include processor capacity, memory capacity, and input/output bandwidth.

14. The computer program product of claim 11 further comprising program code for:

providing support for legacy applications via a “

manager of managers”

application;

registering the “

manager of managers”

application with the protocol; and

enabling an interaction between the “

manager of managers”

application and the legacy applications.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein said program code for enabling farther comprises program code for:

executing one or more of;

a reconfiguration of information associated with a legacy application;

an enabling of the legacy application;

a disabling of the legacy application; and

performing a shutdown of the legacy application.

16. The method for designing a resource management moderator protocol comprising:

creating a protocol to facilitate system resource management wherein said protocol utilizes a set of priorities to assign control to a management application, wherein said priorities are configurable.