System for controlling a distribution of unutilized computer resources

• US 8,024,736 B1
• Filed: 01/28/2005
• Issued: 09/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Nitzsche, Tilo, Graupner, Sven
• Primary Examiner(s): An; Meng
• Assistant Examiner(s): LEE, TAMMY EUNHYE
• Application Number:
  US11/046,334
• Time in Patent Office: 2,426 Days
• Field of Search: 718/104, 718/105, 718/100, 718/102, 709/226
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing

Abstract

Computer resources from a pool of resources are allocated for executing an application. An amount of unutilized resources in the pool of resources is determined. One or more sets of resources previously allocated to execute the application are selected, and the unutilized resources are distributed among the sets of resources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining, using a computer system, an amount of unutilized resources from a pool of resources operable to be allocated for executing at least one application;

selecting at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application;

determining a distribution of the amount of unutilized resources among the selected at least one set of resources, comprising;

adding resources to the at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application when a metric associated with the at least one set of resources surpasses an upper threshold, and

releasing unutilized resources from the at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application when the metric associated with the at least one set of resources is below a lower threshold;

determining a set of parameters used by a control plug-in to control allocated resources, wherein the set of parameters define a policy in the control plug-in to control the allocated resources; and

selecting at least one parameter of the set of parameters to modify to achieve the determined distribution.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting at least one parameter of the set of parameters to modify to achieve the determined distribution further comprises:

calculating a new parameter value for each of the at least one selected parameters to achieve the determined distribution.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

storing a change between the new parameter value and an original parameter value for each of the at least one selected parameters; and

restoring the original parameter value for each of the at least one selected parameters using the stored change for each of the at least one selected parameters.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining an amount of unutilized resources from of pool of resources operable to be allocated for executing at least one application further comprises:

determining an amount of unutilized servers for a server free pool.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein selecting at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application further comprises:

selecting at least one server group.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining a distribution of the amount of unutilized resources among the at least one set of resources further comprises:

determining a distribution of the unutilized servers among the at least one server group.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the metric associated with the at least one set of resources is CPU utilization, process queue lengths, IO and network bandwidth, memory utilization or swap rate.

8. A system comprising:

a resource assessment computer system including control plug-ins for determining an amount of unutilized resources from of a pool of computer resources and whether to adjust computer resources allocated from the pool of computer resources to execute the application; and

a surplus controller controlling the distribution of unutilized computer resources from the pool of computer resources to the allocated computer resources,

wherein the control plug-ins include an upper threshold and a lower threshold;

wherein when a metric associated with the computer resources allocated to execute the application surpasses the upper threshold, the control plug-ins add resources to the allocated computer resources, and when the metric associated with the computer resources allocated to execute the application is below the lower threshold, the control plug-ins release unutilized computer resources allocated to execute the application; and

wherein the surplus controller receives parameters used by the control plug-ins, the parameters defining a policy for allocating the unutilized resources, and selects at least one of the parameters to modify to distribute the unutilized computer resources.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

a resource manager computer system allocating the computer resources from a pool of computer resources for executing an application.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

a data monitoring system monitoring the metrics for the allocated computer resources.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the surplus controller determines whether to distribute unutilized computer resources based on the metrics from the data monitoring system.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the resource assessment computer system determines whether to adjust the computer resources based on the metrics from the data monitoring system.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the surplus controller selects a subset of the allocated resources to receive the surplus servers.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the pool of resources comprises servers operable to run a horizontally scalable application.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the allocated resources comprise server groups.

16. An apparatus comprising:

control plug-ins determining an amount of unutilized resources from a pool of computer resources and whether to adjust computer resources allocated to execute the application from the pool of computer resources; and

a processor to modify parameters used by the control plug-ins to control the distribution of unutilized computer resources from the pool of computer resources to at least some of the allocated computer resources,

wherein the control plug-ins include an upper threshold parameter and a lower threshold parameter;

wherein when a metric associated with the computer resources allocated to execute the application surpasses the upper threshold parameter, the control plug-ins add resources to the allocated computer resources, and when the metric associated with the computer resources allocated to execute the application is below the lower threshold parameter, the control plug-ins release unutilized computer resources allocated to execute the application; and

wherein a surplus controller receives parameters used by the control plug-ins, the parameters defining a policy for allocating the unutilized resources, and selects at least one of the parameters to modify to distribute the unutilized computer resources.

17. A computer program provided on a computer readable storage device and comprising code that when executed causes a computer to perform the following:

determining an amount of unutilized resources from of pool of resources operable to be allocated for executing at least one application;

selecting at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application;

determining a distribution of the amount of unutilized resources among the at least one set of resources, comprising;

adding resources to the at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application when a metric associated with the at least one set of resources surpasses an upper threshold, and

releasing unutilized resources from the at least one set of resources previously allocated to execute the at least one application when the metric associated with the at least one set of resources is below a lower threshold;

determining a set of parameters used by a control plug-in to control allocated resources, wherein the set of parameters define a policy in the control plug-in to control the allocated resources; and

selecting at least one parameter of the set of parameters to modify to achieve the determined distribution.