System and Method for Automated Assignment of Virtual Machines and Physical Machines to Hosts

• US 20140019961A1
• Filed: 07/13/2012
• Published: 01/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Neuse, Douglas M., Clay, Laurence E., Tibrewala, Neal, Zink, Kenneth C., Peterson, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 9,043,787 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5019 Workload prediction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration

Abstract

A system and method for reconfiguring a computing environment comprising a consumption analysis server, a placement server, an infrastructure management client and a data warehouse in communication with a set of data collection agents and a database. The consumption analysis server operates on measured resource utilization data to yield a set of resource consumptions in regularized time blocks, collects host and virtual machine configurations from the computing environment and determines available capacity for a set of target hosts. The placement server assigns a set of target virtual machines to the target set of hosts in a new placement. In one mode of operation the new placement is nearly optimal. In another mode of operation, the new placement is “good enough” to achieve a threshold score based on an objective function of resource capacity headroom. The new placement is implemented in the computing environment.

Claims

1. An infrastructure management system comprising:

a first server comprising a first processor, a first memory, and a first set of program instructions stored in the first memory;

a target set of hosts and a target set of virtual machines;

wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions;

determines a new placement of the target set of virtual machines on the target set of hosts;

wherein the new placement comprises a set of virtual machine-host pairs from the target set of hosts and the target set of virtual machines.

2. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 further comprising:

a second server, communicatively coupled with the first server, comprising a second processor, a second memory and a second set of program instructions stored in the second memory;

wherein the second processor, executing the first set of program instructions;

receives a target configuration;

sends the target configuration to the first server; and

,

receives the new placement.

3. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

determines a set of host resource capacities and a set of virtual machine resource consumptions for a source computing system; and

a selected host resource capacity of the set of host resource capacities is derived from a set of component capacities, a processor efficiency, a virtual machine monitor efficiency and a capacity reserve.

4. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

receives a set of resource utilization data for a set of resources;

determines a set of host resource capacities and a set of virtual machine resource consumptions for a source computing system;

transforms the resource utilization data into the set of virtual machine resource consumptions for a set of regularized time blocks;

receives a source configuration comprising a set of physical machine configurations and a set of virtual machine configurations;

determines the set of host resource capacities based on the source configuration;

estimates a guest operating system overhead consumption for the set of virtual machine configurations; and

,

determines a set of planning percentiles for the set of virtual machine resource consumptions.

5. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

determines a threshold requirement; and

,

identifies a target placement for the target set of hosts and the target set of virtual machines that meets the threshold requirement.

6. The infrastructure management system of claim 5 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

iterates a placement modification to determine a best placement until the threshold requirement is met; and

,

reports the best placement.

7. The infrastructure management system of claim 5 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

determines a total virtual machine resource consumption of each resource in a set of resources for all virtual machines assigned to a host in the target placement;

determines an available capacity of each resource in the set of resources assigned to the host in the target placement;

determines a difference between the available capacity and the total virtual machine consumption.

8. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

assigns an initial placement;

refines the initial placement in a set of single move refinements;

removes a selected virtual machine from a first host in the target set of hosts; and

,

adds the selected virtual machine to a second host in the target set of hosts.

9. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

removes a set of movable virtual machines from a source computing system;

installs the set of movable virtual machines in a destination computing system according to the new placement; and

,

installs a set of new virtual machines in the destination computing system according to the new placement.

10. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 further comprising:

a set of planning percentile resource consumptions for each resource in a set of resources; and

,

wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further;

determines a total host resource capacity for the target set of hosts for each resource in the set of resources;

determines a total planning percentile resource consumption for the target set of virtual machines for each resource in the set of resources;

determines a set of a normalized differences between the total host resource capacity and the total planning percentile resource consumption for each resource in the set of resources;

determines a minimum normalized difference from the set of normalized differences for the set of resources;

multiplies the minimum normalized difference by a scoring factor.

11. The infrastructure management system of claim 1 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

iterates a placement modification to determine a best placement until a stop condition is met; and

,

reports the best placement.

12. The infrastructure management system of claim 11 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

determines an initial placement score;

determines a best score for the best placement; and

,

wherein the stop condition is the best score being greater than the initial placement score.

13. The infrastructure management system of claim 11 wherein the first processor, executing the first set of program instructions further:

right-sizes a candidate placement resulting from the placement modification if the stop condition is not met.

14. A method for reconfiguration of a source computing system into a new placement for a destination computing system comprising:

receiving a target set of hosts and a target set of virtual machines;

determining a new placement of the target set of virtual machines on the target set of hosts;

wherein the new placement comprises a set of virtual machine-host pairs derived from the target set of hosts and the target set of virtual machines.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

receiving a set of resource utilization data from a set of resources;

transforming the resource utilization data into the set of virtual machine resource consumptions for a set of regularized time blocks;

determining a source configuration comprising a set of physical machine configurations and a set of virtual machine configurations;

determining the set of host resource capacities from the source configuration;

deriving a guest operating system overhead consumption for the set of virtual machine configurations; and

,

determining a set of planning percentiles for the set of virtual machine resource consumptions where each planning percentile in the set of planning percentiles is associated to a resource in the set of resources.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

determining a threshold requirement; and

,

identifying a target placement for the target set of hosts and the target set of virtual machines that meets the threshold requirement.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

iterating a placement modification to determine a best placement until the threshold requirement is met; and

,

reporting the best placement.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

determining a total virtual machine resource consumption of each resource in a set of resources for all virtual machines assigned to a host in the target placement;

determining an available capacity of each resource in the set of resources assigned to the host in the target placement;

determining a difference between the available capacity and the total virtual machine consumption.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

determining a set of host resource capacities and a set of virtual machine resource consumptions for a source computing system; and

,

determining the new placement from the set of host resource capacities and the set of virtual machine resource consumptions.

20. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

moving a set of movable virtual machines from the source computing system to the destination computing system according to the new placement;

installing a set of new virtual machines in the destination computing system according to the new placement.

21. The method of claim 14 further comprising;

determining a set of planning percentile resource consumptions for each resource in a set of resources;

determining a total host resource capacity for the target set of hosts for each resource in the set of resources;

determining a total planning percentile resource consumption for the target set of virtual machines for each resource in the set of resources;

determining a set of a normalized differences between the total host resource capacity and the total planning percentile resource consumption for each resource in the set of resources;

determining a minimum normalized difference from the set of normalized differences for the set of resources; and

,

multiplying the minimum normalized difference by a scoring factor.

22. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

iterating a placement modification to determine a best placement until a stop condition is met; and

,

reporting the best placement.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising:

determining an initial placement and an initial placement score;

determining a best score for the best placement; and

,

wherein the stop condition is met if the best score is greater than the initial score value.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

right sizing a candidate placement if the stop condition is not met.

25. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

deriving a set of planning percentile resource consumptions for each resource in the set of resources for a set of regularized time blocks and for a set of virtual machines assigned to a host in the target placement;

determining a total host resource consumption from the set of planning percentiles for each resource in the set of resources for each virtual machine in the set of virtual machines and for the host in the target placement;

determining a total host resource capacity for each resource in the set of resources for each virtual machine in the set of virtual machines and for the host in the target placement;

deriving a set of resource scores from the total host resource consumption and the total host resource capacity; and

,

determining a minimum resource score in the set of resource scores.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein determining a set of resource scores further comprises:

determining a normalized difference between the total host resource capacity and the total host resource consumption.

27. The system of claim 25 wherein determining a total host resource consumption further comprises:

compensating for guest operating system overhead for the set of virtual machines.

28. The method of claim 25 wherein determining a total host resource capacity further comprises:

determining a virtual machine monitor efficiency, from a set of virtual machine monitor scalability factors, for the host in the target placement, for each virtual machine in the set of virtual machines and for each resource in the set of resources;

determining a processor efficiency, from a set of processor scalability factors, for the host in the target placement; and

,

multiplying a host component capacity in a set of component capacities by the processor efficiency and the virtual machine monitor efficiency.