OPTIMIZING VIRTUAL MACHINE SYNCHRONIZATION FOR APPLICATION SOFTWARE

• US 20120233609A1
• Filed: 03/10/2011
• Published: 09/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dawson, Michael H., Hrischuk, Curtis E., Blythe, Christopher J., Quirk, Aaron J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,990,823 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]

Abstract

Real-time application metrics of an application executed by a virtual machine are dynamically monitored by a controlling agent and analyzed to determine an optimal configuration of the virtual machine for executing the application. Based on the measured metrics, tunable parameters of the virtual machine may be adjusted to achieve desired application performance.

Claims

1. A method of optimizing performance of a virtual machine executed by a system that includes a plurality of processing units, the method comprising:

measuring, by a container application of the system that controls the virtual machine, a metric of an application executed by the virtual machine; and

adjusting a tunable parameter of the virtual machine based on the measured metric.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the tunable parameter comprises at least one of an allocation of the plurality of processing units, to which servicing of the application is restricted, allocated to the virtual machine and a spin strategy that controls spinning in locks used for synchronization within the virtual machine.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the adjusting comprises:

transmitting, by the container application, a request to the virtual machine to adjust the tunable parameter; and

adjusting, by the virtual machine, the tunable parameter in response to the transmitted request.

4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

restricting the virtual machine to an initial allocation of processing units and setting the spin strategy to an initial spin strategy,

wherein the measuring comprises measuring the metric of the virtual machine allocated the initial allocation of processing units and set to the initial spin strategy.

5. The method according to claim 2, wherein the tunable parameter is the allocation of the plurality of processing units allocated to the virtual machine, and

wherein the metric comprises a utilization rate of processing units allocated to the virtual machine to which servicing of the application is restricted.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the adjusting the allocation of the plurality of processing units comprises:

increasing the allocation of the plurality of processing units to which servicing of the virtual machine is restricted in response to measuring an increased utilization rate; and

decreasing the allocation of the plurality of processing units to which the servicing of the virtual machine is restricted in response to measuring a decreased utilization rate.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein metric comprises at least one of a throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and a response time of the application executed by the virtual machine, and

wherein the measuring comprises measuring the at least one of the throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and the response time of the application executed by the virtual machine.

8. The method according to claim 2, wherein the spin strategy comprises disabling spinning while waiting for the synchronization lock to be freed or continuous spinning while waiting for the synchronization lock to be freed.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measuring comprises intermittently measuring the metric over a period of time, and

wherein the adjusting comprises adjusting the tunable parameter, based on the intermittently measured metric.

10. A computer program product for optimizing performance of a virtual machine executed by a system that includes a plurality of processing units, the computer program product comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium having embodied thereon computer-readable code that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to execute a method of optimizing the performance of the virtual machine, the method comprising;

measuring, by a container application of the system that controls the virtual machine, a metric of an application executed by the virtual machine; and

adjusting a tunable parameter of the virtual machine based on the measured metric.

11. The computer program product according to claim 10, wherein the tunable parameter comprises at least one of an allocation of the plurality of processing units, to which servicing of the application is restricted, allocated to the virtual machine and a spin strategy that controls spinning in locks used for synchronization within the virtual machine.

12. The computer program product according to claim 10, wherein the adjusting comprises:

transmitting, by the container application, a request to the virtual machine to adjust the tunable parameter; and

adjusting, by the virtual machine, the tunable parameter in response to the transmitted request.

13. The computer program product according to claim 11, further comprising:

restricting the virtual machine to an initial allocation of processing units and setting the spin strategy to an initial spin strategy,

wherein the measuring comprises measuring the metric of the virtual machine allocated the initial allocation of processing units and set to the initial spin strategy.

14. The computer program product according to claim 11, wherein the tunable parameter is the allocation of the plurality of processing units allocated to the virtual machine, and

wherein the metric comprises a utilization rate of processing units allocated to the virtual machine to which servicing of the application is restricted.

15. The computer program product according to claim 14, wherein the adjusting the allocation of the plurality of processing units comprises:

increasing the allocation of the plurality of processing units to which servicing of the virtual machine is restricted in response to measuring an increased utilization rate; and

decreasing the allocation of the plurality of processing units to which the servicing of the virtual machine is restricted in response to measuring a decreased utilization rate.

16. The computer program product according to claim 10, wherein metric comprises at least one of a throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and a response time of the application executed by the virtual machine, and

wherein the measuring comprises measuring the at least one of the throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and the response time of the application executed by the virtual machine.

17. The computer program product according to claim 11, wherein the spin strategy comprises disabling spinning while waiting for the synchronization lock to be freed or continuous spinning while waiting for the synchronization lock to be freed.

18. The computer program product according to claim 10, wherein the measuring comprises intermittently measuring the metric over a period of time, and

wherein the adjusting comprises adjusting the tunable parameter, based on the intermittently measured metric.

19. A system for optimizing performance of a virtual machine executed by a plurality of processing units, the system comprising:

a measuring unit that measures a metric of an application executed by the virtual machine; and

an adjusting unit that adjusts a tunable parameter of the virtual machine based on the measured metric.

20. The system according to claim 19, wherein the tunable parameter comprises at least one of an allocation of the plurality of processing units, to which servicing of the application is restricted, allocated to the virtual machine and a spin strategy that controls spinning in locks used for synchronization within the virtual machine.

21. The system according to claim 19, wherein the measuring unit transmits a request to the virtual machine to adjust the tunable parameter, and

wherein the adjusting unit adjusts the tunable parameter in response to the transmitted request.

22. The system according to claim 20, wherein the virtual machine is restricted to an initial allocation of processing units and the spin strategy is set to an initial spin strategy, and

wherein the measuring unit measures the metric of the virtual machine allocated the initial allocation of processing units and set to the initial spin strategy.

23. The system according to claim 20, wherein the tunable parameter is the allocation of the plurality of processing units allocated to the virtual machine, and

wherein the metric comprises a utilization rate of processing units allocated to the virtual machine to which servicing of the application is restricted.

24. The system according to claim 19, wherein metric comprises at least one of a throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and a response time of the application executed by the virtual machine, and

wherein the measuring unit measures the at least one of the throughput of the application executed by the virtual machine and the response time of the application executed by the virtual machine.

25. The system according to claim 19, wherein the measuring unit intermittently measures the metric over a period of time, and

wherein the adjusting unit adjusts the tunable parameter based on the intermittently measured metric.