Job migration in response to loss or degradation of a semi-redundant component

• US 8,694,827 B2
• Filed: 07/03/2012
• Issued: 04/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lenovo International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bower, Fred A. III, Piper, Scott A., Pruett, Gregory B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lottich, Joshua P
• Assistant Examiner(s): Arcos, Jeison C
• Application Number:
  US13/541,403
• Publication Number:
  US 20120290874A1
• Time in Patent Office: 644 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/318, 709/227, 709/203, 709/221, 370/216, 719/338, 714/4.11
• US Class Current: 714/13
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1666 where the redundant component is memory or memory area
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2015 Redundant power supplies power supply failure G06F1/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2035 without idle spare hardware

Abstract

A method of managing the workload in a computer system having one or more semi-redundant hardware components is provided. The method comprises detecting loss or degradation of the level of performance of one or more of the semi-redundant hardware components, identifying hardware components affected by the loss or degradation, migrating a critical job from an affected hardware component to an unaffected hardware component, and performing less-critical jobs on an affected hardware component. Loss or degradation of the semi-redundant component reduces the capacity of affected hardware components in the computer system without entirely disabling the computer system. Jobs identified as critical run on hardware components having the most capacity and reliability, while less-critical jobs use the remaining capacity of affected hardware components. Examples of semi-redundant hardware components include a memory module, CPU core, Ethernet port, power supply, fan, disk drive, and an input output port.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting loss or degradation of the level of operation of one or more of the semi-redundant hardware components;

identifying hardware components that are affected by the loss or degradation of the one or more semi-redundant components;

migrating a critical job from an affected hardware component to an unaffected hardware component;

performing less-critical jobs on an affected hardware component; and

migrating a less-critical job from the unaffected semi-redundant hardware component to the affected hardware component.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the loss of a semi-redundant component reduces the capacity of affected hardware components in the computer system without entirely disabling the computer system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the semi-redundant hardware component is selected from memory modules, CPU cores, ethernet ports, power supplies, fans, disk drives, and other IO connections.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the semi-redundant hardware component is a power supply tied into a power bus with one or more other power supplies, wherein the power bus provides power to the computer system.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deconfiguring a specific semi-redundant hardware component from systems utilizing the specific semi-redundant hardware component in response to detecting loss of the specific semi-redundant hardware component.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a user-provided tag in association with a job, wherein the tag may be set to identify the job as critical.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a job as being critical in response to determining that the job is currently using greater than a setpoint percentage of resources allocated to the job.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a job list identifying critical jobs, wherein the step of migrating a critical job includes selecting the critical job from the job list.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining a job list of the jobs running on affected hardware components; and

using the job list to identify the critical job to migrate.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of obtaining the job list includes querying the affected hardware components.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of obtaining the job list includes reading a workload database maintained by a workload management controller.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of identifying hardware components that are affected by the loss or degradation of the one or more semi-redundant components, includes querying a plurality of hardware components within a common system with the one or more semi-redundant components.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of identifying hardware components that are affected by the loss or degradation of the one or more semi-redundant components, includes reading an inventory of hardware components within a common system with the one or more semi-redundant components.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a list of semi-redundant hardware components in a computer system.