Generating optimized resource consumption periods for multiple users on combined basis

• US 8,832,219 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2011
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Morgan, Christopher Edwin
• Primary Examiner(s): Gillis, Brian J
• Assistant Examiner(s): DUONG, THAO DUC
• Application Number:
  US13/037,359
• Publication Number:
  US 20120226796A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,288 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/226, 709/229, 709220-224
• US Class Current: 709/216
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1453 Methods or systems for payment or settlement of the charges for data transmission involving significant interaction with the data transmission network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0897 by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A method and system for managing cloud consumption including accessing a set of aggregate usage history data for a set of users each operating a set of machines consuming a set of resources in a host cloud, generating a set of variable consumption periods over which the consumption of the set of resources will be tracked for the set of users on a combined basis, identifying a set of subscription margins for a resource in the set of resources based on a comparison of the consumption of the resource to a resource subscription limit for the set of users on a combined basis over the set of variable consumption periods, generating a set of marginal consumption values for the set of users for a resource for the set of variable consumption periods in the host cloud, and generating a management action based on the marginal consumption value.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing a set of aggregate usage history data for a set of users each operating a set of machines consuming a set of resources in a host cloud;

generating a set of variable consumption periods over which the consumption of the set of resources will be tracked for the set of users on a combined basis, wherein a length of each of the set of variable consumption periods is less than a length of a subscription limit period defined in a set of subscription parameters;

identifying a set of subscription margins for a resource in the set of resources in view of a comparison of the consumption of the resource to a resource subscription limit for the set of users on a combined basis over the set of variable consumption periods;

generating, by a processor, a set of marginal consumption values for the set of users for the set of variable consumption periods in the host cloud, wherein the length of each of the set of variable consumption periods varies in view of relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values; and

generating a management action in view of the marginal consumption value for the set of variable consumption periods.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the length of each of the variable consumption periods decreases in view of increasing relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the length of each of the variable consumption periods increases in view of decreasing relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the management action comprises adjusting the resource subscription limit for at least one of the users in the set of users.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the management action comprises generating a restriction on the consumption of the set of resources for at least one of the users in the set of users.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the management action comprises initiating a rollover operation to migrate the consumption of a portion of the resources by a user in the set of users to an additional host cloud.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of variable consumption periods comprises an instantaneous consumption value indicating the set of subscription margins for the set of users on a combined basis in substantially real-time.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising generating a running average of the instantaneous consumption value for the set of users on a combined basis.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising generating an alert when the instantaneous consumption value exceeds the running average of the instantaneous consumption value for the set of users on a combined basis.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of subscription margins comprises an over-limit consumption total for the resource or an under-limit consumption total for the resource for the set of users on a combined basis.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of variable consumption periods comprise a set of time periods metered in units of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of aggregate usage history data comprises processor usage data, memory usage data, storage usage data, communications bandwidth usage data, operating system usage data, application usage data, service usage data, virtual machine instance data, or appliance usage data.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource subscription limit comprises a combined instance limit for a set of virtual machines, a combined instance limit for a set of appliances, a combined instance limit for an operating system, a combined instance limit for at least one application, a combined communications bandwidth throughput limit, or a combined storage amount limit.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the host cloud comprises a set of host clouds.

15. A system comprising:

an interface to a data store, the data store storing a set of aggregate usage history data for a set of users each operating a set of machines consuming a set of resources in a host cloud; and

a processor to communicate with the data store via the interface, the processor to;

access the set of aggregate usage history data for the set of users each operating the set of machines consuming the set of resources in the host cloud,

generate a set of variable consumption periods over which the consumption of the set of resources will be tracked for the set of users on a combined basis, wherein a length of each of the set of variable consumption periods is less than a length of a subscription limit period defined in a set of subscription parameters,

identify a set of subscription margins for a resource in the set of resources in view of a comparison of the consumption of the resource to a resource subscription limit for the set of users on a combined basis over the set of variable consumption periods,

generate a set of marginal consumption values for the set of users for the resource for the set of variable consumption periods in the host cloud, wherein the length of each of the set of variable consumption periods varies in view of relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values, and

generate a management action in view of the marginal consumption value for the set of variable consumption periods.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the length of each of the variable consumption periods decreases in view of increasing relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the length of each of the variable consumption periods increases in view of decreasing relative changes in the set of marginal consumption values.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the management action comprises adjusting the resource subscription limit for a user in the set of users.