Application initiated negotiations for resources meeting a performance parameter in a virtualized computing environment

• US 8,694,996 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2012
• Issued: 04/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cawlfield, Kevin J., Chen, Chang W., Harding, Mitchell P., Hollinger, Michael C., Reddock, Michael R.
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Jennifer
• Assistant Examiner(s): WU, BENJAMIN C
• Application Number:
  US13/552,333
• Publication Number:
  US 20130160008A1
• Time in Patent Office: 629 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A hypervisor negotiates to reserve at least one available local resource in a host system that meets a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request by a particular logical partition from among one or more logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources managed by the hypervisor in the host system, wherein the at least one performance parameter is specified by a particular application initiating the reservation request. The hypervisor, responsive to determining that the at least one available resource is not available in the host system, negotiates for offers to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the performance parameter, wherein the at least one other host system is managed by at least one other hypervisor that manages one or more other logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources.

Claims

1. A method for managing requests for resources, comprising:

negotiating, by a hypervisor, to reserve at least one available local resource in a host system that meets at least one performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request by a particular logical partition from among one or more logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources managed by the hypervisor in the host system, wherein the at least one performance parameter is initially specified in a resource request by a particular application initiating the reservation request from the particular logical partition, wherein the particular logical partition receives the resource request from the particular application through a negotiation interface of an operating system of the particular logical partition, formats the resource request into the reservation request for the hypervisor, records the reservation request by a requesting application identifier of the particular application in an outgoing request table, and submits the reservation request to the hypervisor;

responsive to determining that the at least one available local resource is available in the host system, reserving, by the hypervisor, the at least one available local resource for use by the particular application in the particular logical partition and returning, by the hypervisor, to the particular logical partition through the negotiation interface, a response that the reservation request is granted; and

responsive to determining that the at least one available local resource is not available in the host system, negotiating, by the hypervisor for offers to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the at least one performance parameter, wherein the at least one other host system is managed by at least one other hypervisor that manages one or more other logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the hypervisor, the reservation request from the operating system of the particular logical partition, wherein the operating system receives the resource request from the particular application specifying a type of resource and the at least one performance parameter comprising a quality of service, a lease start time, a lease duration, and a cost and formats the resource request from the particular application into the reservation request from the particular logical partition.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein receiving, by the hypervisor, the reservation request from the operating system of the particular logical partition, wherein the operating system receives the resource request from the particular application specifying a type of resource and the at least one performance parameter comprising a quality of service and formats the resource request from the particular application into the reservation request from the particular logical partition further comprises:

receiving the reservation request specifying the at least one performance parameter comprising the quality of service of memory, wherein the quality of service of memory comprises at least one of real memory and disk paging.

4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

receiving, by the operating system, a call from the particular application with the resource request to the negotiation interface of the operating system, wherein the negotiation interface enables the operating system to handle application initiated resource requests comprising the at least one performance parameter within the particular logical partition.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to determining that the at least one available local resource in the host system meets the at least one performance parameter, reserving the at least one available local resource for the particular logical partition; and

moving the at least one available local resource to the particular logical partition, wherein the operating system of the particular logical partition allocates the at least one available local resource to the particular application.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to the hypervisor receiving at least one offer to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system managed by at least one other hypervisor comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the at least one performance parameter, sending a request from the hypervisor to the particular logical partition to approve the at least one offer through the negotiation interface;

receiving, by the operating system in the particular logical partition, the request;

identifying, by the operating system, the particular application by identifying the requesting application identifier assigned to the reservation request in the outgoing request table;

submitting, by the operating system, the request to the particular application, wherein the particular application decides whether to accept at least one offer and returns a response to the operating system indicating whether to accept the at least one offer;

returning, by the operating system, the response to the hypervisor from the particular application on behalf of the particular logical partition; and

responsive to the hypervisor receiving an acceptance of the at least one offer from the particular logical partition, sending, by the hypervisor, a bid acceptance to a bidding remote host system of the approved at least one offer and brokering migration of the particular logical partition to the biding remote host system.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein responsive to determining that the at least one available resource is not available in the host system, negotiating, by the hypervisor for offers to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the at least one performance parameter, wherein the at least one other host system is managed by at least one other hypervisor that manages one or more other logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources, further comprises:

broadcasting a request for bids on the reservation request via a peer-to-peer management network to the at least one other host system, wherein the host system and the at least one other host system comprise an ensemble.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein responsive to determining that the at least one available resource is not available in the host system, negotiating, by the hypervisor for offers to migrate the particular logical partition to at least one other host system comprising at least one available remote resource that meets the at least one performance parameter, wherein the at least one other host system is managed by at least one other hypervisor that manages one or more other logical partitions of virtualized pools of resources, further comprises:

identifying another logical partition managed by the hypervisor in the host system that is assigned at least one local resource meeting the at least one performance parameter and that is migratable to another host system;

collecting a first cost of migrating the particular logical partition and a second cost of migrating the another logical partition;

responsive to determining the first cost is less than the second cost, marking the particular logical partition as a migration candidate;

responsive to determining the first cost is not less than the second cost, marking the another logical partition as the migration candidate; and

broadcasting a request for bids for migrating the migration candidate to the at least one other host system.