COALESCING VIRTUAL MACHINES TO ENABLE OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE

• US 20120167083A1
• Filed: 12/27/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Suit, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,354,960 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Virtual machine resources may be monitored for optimal allocation. One example method may include generating a list of virtual machines operating in a network and surveying the virtual machines to determine their current resource usage data. The method may also include ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data to indicate available resources of the virtual machines, and assigning the virtual machines to at least one business application service group (BASG) that requires the available resources of the virtual machines.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

generating a list of virtual machines currently operating in a network;

surveying the virtual machines to determine their current resource usage data;

ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data to indicate available resources of the virtual machines; and

assigning the virtual machines to at least one business application service group (BASG) that requires the available resources of the virtual machines.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning a profile to the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the profile is at least one of a high availability, high capacity, high speed, moderate capacity, moderate speed, moderate availability, low capacity, low speed and low availability, and the profile is based on at least one of CPU usage, memory usage and disk usage.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

compiling a list of candidate BASGs prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machines are currently operating as part of an established BASG prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data comprises averaging the virtual machines over the total number of virtual machines.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the current resource usage data is obtained over a period of 30 days.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a memory to store a list of virtual machines currently operating in a network; and

a processor, coupled to the memory, to generate the list of the virtual machines currently operating in the network, store the list in the memory, survey the virtual machines to determine their current resource usage data, rank the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data to indicate available resources of the virtual machines, and assign the virtual machines to at least one business application service group (BASG) that requires the available resources of the virtual machines.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein a profile is assigned to the virtual machines based on the current resource usage data of the virtual machines.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the profile is at least one of a high availability, high capacity, high speed, moderate capacity, moderate speed, moderate availability, low capacity, low speed and low availability, and the profile is based on at least one of CPU usage, memory usage and disk usage.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to compile a list of candidate BASGs prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the virtual machines are currently operating as part of an established BASG prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data comprises the processor performing an average of the virtual machines over the total number of virtual machines.

14. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the current resource usage data is obtained over a period of 30 days.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed cause a processor to perform operations comprising:

generating a list of virtual machines currently operating in a network;

surveying the virtual machines to determine their current resource usage data;

ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data to indicate available resources of the virtual machines; and

assigning the virtual machines to at least one business application service group (BASG) that requires the available resources of the virtual machines.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

assigning a profile to the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the profile is at least one of a high availability, high capacity, high speed, moderate capacity, moderate speed, moderate availability, low capacity, low speed and low availability, and the profile is based on at least one of CPU usage, memory usage and disk usage.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

compiling a list of candidate BASGs prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the virtual machines are currently operating as part of an established BASG prior to assigning the virtual machines to the at least one business application service group (BASG).

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the ranking the virtual machines based on their current resource usage data comprises averaging the virtual machines over the total number of virtual machines.