Method and system for load balancing of computing resources

• US 7,934,216 B2
• Filed: 10/03/2005
• Issued: 04/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Holley, Adam R., Taylor, Neil Allen, Aggarwal, Vijay K., Kumhyr, David Bruce
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente; Emerson C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lee; Adam
• Application Number:
  US11/242,678
• Publication Number:
  US 20070078858A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,031 Days
• Field of Search: 718104-105
• US Class Current: 718/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A load balancing method incorporates temporarily inactive machines as part of the resources capable of executing tasks during heavy process requests periods to alleviate some of the processing load on other computing resources. This method determines which computing resources are available and prioritizes these resources for access by the load balancing process. A snap shot of the resource configuration and made secured along with all data on this system such that no contamination occurs between resident data on that machine and any data placed on that machine as put of the load balancing activities. After a predetermined period of time or a predetermined event, the availability of the temporary resources for load balancing activities ends. At this point, the original configuration and data is restored to the computing resource such that no trace of use of the resource in load balancing activities is detected to the user.

Claims

1. A method for load balancing of computing tasks in a computing system using temporarily inactive computing machines in the performance of computing tasks and comprising the steps of:

identifying currently inactive computing machines that may be available for load balancing operations;

when the determination is that computing machines are inactive, determining which computing machines qualify for load balancing operations by;

determining an amount of time a currently inactive computing machine will remain inactive;

determining whether a particular currently inactive computing machine has a security status that will permit the currently inactive computing machine to be used in load balancing operations, the security status of a computing machine can be based on one or a combination of parameters, which include the types of computing tasks performed on the computing machine, data stored on the computing machine and a user permitted access to use the computing machine;

tagging a computing machine that is currently inactive and is permitted to be used in load balancing operations as available for use in load balancing operations and disqualifying a computing machine with a security certain status that will not permit the disqualified computing machine to be used in load balancing operations as unavailable;

storing a current computing configuration of each computing machine that qualifies for load balancing operations;

prioritizing the qualifying computing machines for use during load balancing operations, by determining a priority level of each computing machine based on the types of users having access to each computing machine and the types of information that can be processed on each computing machine; and

assigning each determined priority level to each computing machine, the assigned priority level for a computing machine being in relation to the assigned priority level of other computing machines that are available for load balancing operations, the assigned priority levels being from lowest priority level to highest priority level;

determining a maximum load capacity for a computing machine in the load balancing operations;

managing the computing load of computing machines on a computing system by;

detecting a request for a computing machine;

determining machine capabilities necessary to execute a computing task that is the subject of the request;

identifying a qualified computing machine having the lowest priority;

assigning computing tasks to qualified computing machines as part of the load balancing operations and installing the computing tasks on identified computing machines for execution; and

reinstalling secured current computing configurations for each qualifying computing machine at the completion of the load balancing operations, a secured current configuration being a configuration of a computing machine prior to load balancing operations.