PLACEMENT OF VIRTUAL MACHINES ON PHYSICAL HOSTS BASED ON COLLOCATION RULES

• US 20180074670A1
• Filed: 11/15/2017
• Published: 03/15/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cropper, Joseph W., Mulsow, Jennifer D.
• Granted Patent: US 10,691,312 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• 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

Abstract

Placement of virtual machines on physical hosts is based on collocation rules with situational enforcement policies set by a system administrator to increase flexibility in rule enforcement and to more efficiently utilize system resources. A scheduler mechanism allows a system administrator to select different collocation rules and situational enforcement policies for a group of virtual machines. The scheduler mechanism utilizes the collocation rules and the situational enforcement policies to place the virtual machines.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory coupled to the at least one processor;

a collocation rule for a virtual machine group comprising a plurality of virtual machines;

a plurality of situational enforcement policies for a plurality of situations that indicate how to place the plurality of virtual machines for the virtual machine group on physical host computer systems for the plurality of situations; and

a scheduler mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor that places the plurality of virtual machines on the physical host computer systems based on the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies for the plurality of situations.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scheduler mechanism allows a system administrator to define the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group using a graphical user interface.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the scheduler mechanism is part of a management layer of a cloud computing environment.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the physical host computer systems are part of a cloud computing environment.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the collocation rule is chosen from one of the following:

affinity rule, and anti-affinity rule.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scheduler mechanism provides a system administrator with a selection of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group for a plurality of situations.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein plurality of situations for the situational enforcement policies are chosen from one of the following:

live migration, cold migration, rebuild, and evacuation.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the system administrator is allowed to select a situational enforcement policy type chosen from:

hard policy enforcement that indicates to strictly enforce the collocation rule, and soft policy enforcement that indicates strict enforcement of the collocation rule is not required.

9. A computer-implemented method for placing virtual machines on physical host computer systems, the method comprising:

creating a virtual machine group comprising a plurality of virtual machines;

assigning a collocation rule for the virtual machine group;

setting a plurality of situational enforcement policies for a plurality of situations that indicate how to place the plurality of virtual machines on a physical host computer system for the plurality of situations;

placing the plurality of virtual machines on the physical host computer system based on the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the collocation rule is assigned and the plurality of situational enforcement policies are set using a graphical user interface.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the steps are carried out in a management layer of a cloud computing environment.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the physical host computer systems are part of a cloud computing environment.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the collocation rule is chosen from one of the following:

affinity rule, and anti-affinity rule.

14. The method of claim 9 further comprising providing a system administrator with a plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group for one or more of the plurality of situations.

15. The method of claim 15 wherein plurality of situations for the plurality of situational enforcement policies are chosen from one of the following:

live migration, cold migration, rebuild, and evacuation.

16. The method of claim 16 further comprising allowing the system administrator to select a situational enforcement policy type chosen from:

hard policy enforcement, and soft policy enforcement.

17. A computer-implemented method for placing virtual machines on physical host computer systems, the method comprising:

creating a virtual machine group comprising a plurality of virtual machines;

assigning a collocation rule for the virtual machine group, wherein the collocation rule is chosen from one of the following;

affinity rule, and anti-affinity rule;

setting a plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group that indicate how to place the plurality of virtual machines on a physical host computer system for a plurality of situations by providing a system administrator with a plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group for the plurality of situations, and by allowing the system administrator to select situational enforcement policies for the situations selected from hard policy enforcement and soft policy enforcement, wherein hard policy enforcement indicates to strictly enforce the collocation rule, and soft policy enforcement indicates strict enforcement of the collocation rule is not required;

placing the plurality of virtual machines on the physical host computer system based on the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies; and

wherein the plurality of situations for the plurality of situational enforcement policies are chosen from one of the following;

live migration, cold migration, rebuild, and evacuation.