AUTOMATIC MONITORING AND JUST-IN-TIME RESOURCE PROVISIONING SYSTEM

• US 20130014107A1
• Filed: 06/29/2012
• Published: 01/10/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VCE Company, LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Kirchhofer, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,033 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/508 Monitor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system

Abstract

A method and apparatus for automatic provisioning steps using a physical computing block-based infrastructure platform and a virtualized environment is discussed to provide automatic elasticity. Running applications may be monitoring for increased workload, which may trigger a proactive and/or reactive response. The triggered proactive or reactive response includes executing a remediation action upon workloads exceeding set thresholds, as set by a pre-determined monitoring policy. The remediation actions may include the provisioning of additional virtual or physical computing resources to reduce the workload below the set threshold.

Claims

1. A method for allocating computer resources in a virtualized environment, the method comprising:

monitoring performance of a physical computing platform comprising one or more physical hosts, the physical computing platform executing the virtualized environment;

determining whether the performance exceeds a threshold value based on a monitoring policy; and

executing a remediation process to provision physical resources for the physical computing platform if the performance exceeds the threshold value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical computing platform further comprises a computing-block-based physical infrastructure.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the remediation process comprises:

provisioning a physical host having computing resources selected to reduce the performance below the threshold value.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining further comprises:

determining a projected performance based on a rate of increase of the monitored performance; and

determining whether the projected performance will exceed the threshold value based on the monitoring policy.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the remediation process comprises:

provisioning a physical host having computing resources selected to reduce the projected performance below the threshold value;

pre-configuring the physical host for the virtualized environment;

allocating the physical host to a standby pool.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the remediation process comprises:

incorporating a provisioned physical host into the physical computing platform for executing the virtualized environment.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring policy comprises the threshold value and a threshold time interval.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtualized environment comprises a virtualized cluster comprising one or more virtualized machines.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the remediation process comprises:

activating a provisioned physical host for executing the virtualized environment; and

adding the provisioned physical host to the virtualized cluster.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring performance further comprises:

monitoring a performance metric selected from the group comprising;

cluster status, a cluster CPU usage, a cluster memory usage, a cluster hosts usage, and a datastore usage.

11. A method for allocating computer resources in a virtualized environment, the method comprising:

monitoring performance of a virtual machine platform comprising one or more virtual machines;

determining whether the performance exceeds a threshold value based on a monitoring policy; and

executing a remediation process to provision virtual resources for the virtual machine platform if the performance exceeds the threshold value.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the remediation process comprises:

provisioning a virtual machine having virtual computing resources selected to reduce the performance below the threshold value.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining whether the performance falls below a threshold floor value based on the monitoring policy; and

de-provisioning at least one virtual machine if the monitored performance falls below the threshold floor value.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

triggering a remediation alert if the performance exceeds the threshold value; and

pausing the monitoring of the performance while the remediation process is being executed.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining whether the performance continues to exceed the threshold value after executing the remediation process; and

executing a second remediation process comprising provision of physical resources for a physical computing platform if the performance continues to exceed the threshold value.

16. A computer system, comprising:

a storage device configured to store one or more monitoring policies, and

a management server configured to;

monitor performance of a physical computing platform comprising one or more physical hosts, the physical computing platform executing a virtualized environment;

determine whether the performance exceeds a threshold value based on a monitoring policy; and

execute a remediation process to provision physical resources for the physical computing platform if the performance exceeds the threshold value.

17. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the management server is further configured to:

determine whether the performance falls below a threshold floor value based on the monitoring policy; and

de-provision at least one virtual machine if the monitored performance falls below the threshold floor value.

18. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the management server is further configured to:

trigger a remediation alert if the performance exceeds the threshold value; and

pause the monitoring of the performance while the remediation process is being executed.

19. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the management server is further configured to:

determine whether the performance continues to exceed the threshold value after executing the remediation process; and

execute a second remediation process comprising provision of physical resources for a physical computing platform if the performance continues to exceed the threshold value.