Virtual Machine Migration According To Environmental Data

• US 20110107332A1
• Filed: 04/10/2008
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2008
• 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: Bash, Cullen
• Granted Patent: US 8,904,383 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/206 comprising thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5094 where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/20836 Thermal management, e.g. server temperature control
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Embodiments are directed to virtual machine migration according to environmental data in a data center. One embodiment is a method that analyzes environmental data for a data center having plural servers and migrates virtual machines among the servers to increase cooling efficiency in the data center.

Claims

1. ) A method, comprising:

receiving, at a controller, temperature data for servers in a data center; and

migrating, by the controller, a virtual machine from a first server to a second server to reduce a temperature at the first server.

2. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting inlet and outlet temperatures of the servers;

using, by the controller, the inlet and outlet temperatures to determine an area in the data center to move the virtual machine to reduce cooling costs for the data center.

3. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting supply air temperatures for one or more computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units in the data center;

using, by the controller, the supply air temperatures to determine an area in the data center to move the virtual machine to reduce cooling costs for the data center.

4. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising, calculating a Zone-based Local Workload Placement Index (Z_LWPI) to determine where to move the virtual machine in the data center.

5. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising,

calculating thermal multipliers for different groups of servers, the thermal multipliers estimating an ability of servers to accept new workloads;

using the thermal multipliers to determine where to move the virtual machine to reduce cooling costs in the data center.

6. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, at the controller, real-time cooling data and real-time airflow data for the data center;

using the real-time cooling data and the real-time airflow data to determine which server in the data center receives the virtual machine.

7. ) The method of claim 1 further comprising, searching all mappings of plural virtual machines to the servers to find a location to migrate the virtual machine.

8. ) A tangible computer readable medium having instructions for causing a computer to execute a method, comprising:

analyzing environmental data for a data center having plural servers; and

migrating virtual machines among the servers to increase cooling efficiency in the data center.

9. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising, calculating a Zone-based Local Workload Placement Index (Z_LWPI) to determine where to move the virtual machines in the data center.

10. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the environmental data includes temperatures sensed at the servers.

11. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising:

calculating workload indexes for the servers;

using the workload indexes to determine where to move the virtual machines in the data center.

12. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising:

collecting inlet and outlet temperatures of the servers;

collecting supply air temperatures plural computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units in the data center;

using the inlet and outlet temperatures and the air supply temperatures to determine an area in the data center to migrate plural virtual machines to reduce cooling costs for the data center.

13. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising, assessing impact on thermal conditions in the data center after migrating the virtual machines.

14. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising:

receiving temperature data from plural sensors distributed in the data center;

analyzing the temperature data to determine where to migrate the virtual machines to reduce cooling costs in the data center.

15. ) The tangible computer readable medium of claim 8 further comprising:

determining a Local Workload Placement Index (LWPI) for the servers, the LWPI based upon one or more of a thermal management margin, a fluid moving device margin, a thermal correlation index, and a recirculation level at each electronic device;

using the LWPI to determine where to migrate the virtual machines to reduce cooling costs in the data center.

16. ) A datacenter, comprising:

plural servers that execute virtual machines;

plural sensors that sense environmental data in the data center; and

a resource manager that receives the environmental data and migrates the virtual machines among the servers to increase cooling efficiency in the data center.

17. ) The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the resource manager calculates a Zone-based Local Workload Placement Index (Z_LWPI) to determine where to move the virtual machines in the data center.

18. ) The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the resource manager receives inlet and outlet temperatures of the servers from the sensors, calculates server workload indexes based on the inlet and outlet temperatures, and uses the server workload indexes to determine how to distribute the virtual machines in the data center.

19. ) The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the resource manager calculates supply heat indexes and thermal multipliers of the servers to determine where to migrate the virtual machines in the data center, the thermal multipliers estimating abilities of the servers to accept new workloads.

20. ) The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the resource manager searches all mappings of the virtual machines to the servers to find a location in the data center to migrate the virtual machines.