Dynamic placement of heterogeneous workloads

• US 9,218,213 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2007
• Issued: 12/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Steinder, Malgorzata, Whalley, Ian Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Faherty, Corey S
• Application Number:
  US11/862,415
• Publication Number:
  US 20080104605A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,008 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5019 Workload prediction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/504 Resource capping
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/505 Clust
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/506 Constraint
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5033 considering data affinity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Techniques for managing a system of heterogeneous applications are provided. A plurality of applications is classified into a plurality of application types. One or more of the plurality of applications in each of the plurality of application types are classified into one or more collections. A utility function of possible resource allocations is computed for each of the one or more collections. An application placement is computed that optimizes a global utility of the plurality of applications in accordance with the one or more utility functions. Placement and resource allocation of the plurality of applications are modified in the system in accordance with the application placement.

Claims

1. A method for managing a system of heterogeneous applications comprising the steps of:

classifying a plurality of applications into a plurality of application types, wherein the plurality of applications comprises heterogeneous applications, and the heterogeneous applications comprise at least one interactive workload-type application and at least one non-interactive workload-type application;

classifying one or more of the plurality of applications in each of the plurality of application types into one or more collections;

computing a utility function of possible resource allocations for each of the one or more collections comprising the steps of;

(i) obtaining an execution profile for each of the plurality of applications in a given one of the one or more collections;

(ii) obtaining management policies for each of the plurality of applications; and

(iii) computing the utility function for the given one of the collections in accordance with the execution profiles for the plurality of applications, service level agreement goals for the plurality of applications, and a state of the system;

computing an application placement that optimizes a global utility of the plurality of applications in accordance with the one or more utility functions; and

modifying placement and resource allocation of the plurality of applications in the system in accordance with the application placement;

wherein an execution profile for a given interactive workload-type application comprises an average number of processor cycles consumed by requests of a given flow associated with the given interactive workload-type application, and an execution profile for a given non-interactive workload-type application comprises the number of processor cycles used to complete a job associated with the given non-interactive workload-type application, the number of threads used by the job, and the maximum processor speed at which the job progresses.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of classifying the plurality of applications, classifying one or more of the plurality of applications, computing a utility function, computing an application placement, and modifying placement and resource allocation is performed periodically in response to system events.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein, in the step of obtaining an execution profile, the heterogeneous applications comprise all long-running applications known to the system.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of computing an intermediate utility function for each of the one or more of the plurality of applications based on a processing unit assigned to the one or more of the plurality of applications in the given one of the one or more collections.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of using the intermediate utility function to obtain a processing unit allocation for a given application to achieve a certain utility.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising the step of using the intermediate utility function to obtain a resultant utility of a given application given total processing unit allocation to the given one of the one or more collections.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein, in the step of computing an intermediate utility function, the intermediate utility functions for each collection of applications are updated each time the placement of any application within the associated collection is changed as the algorithm progresses.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of calculating a speed at which each of the one or more of the plurality of applications must execute so as to obtain a resultant utility.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of calculating a minimum processing unit allocation assigned to each of the one or more of the plurality of applications, and the given one of the one or more collections, to achieve a resultant utility.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a utility for the given one of the one or more collections of a given placement.

11. Apparatus for managing a system of heterogeneous applications, comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative to;

(i) classify a plurality of applications into a plurality of application types, wherein the plurality of applications comprises heterogeneous applications, and the heterogeneous applications comprise at least one interactive workload-type application and at least one non-interactive workload-type application;

(ii) classify one or more of the plurality of applications in each of the plurality of application types into one or more collections;

(iii) compute a utility function of possible resource allocations for each of the one or more collections comprising the steps of;

(a) obtaining an execution profile for each of the plurality of applications in a given one of the one or more collections;

(b) obtaining management policies for each of the plurality of applications; and

(c) computing the utility function for the given one of the collections in accordance with the execution profiles for the plurality of applications, service level agreement goals for the plurality of applications, and a state of the system;

(iv) compute an application placement that optimizes a global utility of the plurality of applications in accordance with the one or more utility functions; and

(v) modify placement and resource allocation of the plurality of applications in the system in accordance with the application placement;

wherein an execution profile for a given interactive workload-type application comprises an average number of processor cycles consumed by requests of a given flow associated with the given interactive workload-type application, and an execution profile for a given non-interactive workload-type application comprises the number of processor cycles used to complete a job associated with the given non-interactive workload-type application, the number of threads used by the job, and the maximum processor speed at which the job progresses.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the operations of classifying the plurality of applications, classifying one or more of the plurality of applications, computing a utility function, computing an application placement, and modifying placement and resource allocation is performed periodically in response to system events.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein, in the operation of obtaining an execution profile, the heterogeneous applications comprise all long-running applications known to the system.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the processor is further operative to compute an intermediate utility function for each of the one or more of the plurality of applications based on a processing unit assigned to the one or more of the plurality of applications in the given one of the one or more collections.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processor is further operative to use the intermediate utility function to obtain a processing unit allocation for a given application to achieve a certain utility.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processor is further operative to use the intermediate utility function to obtain a resultant utility of a given application given total processing unit allocation to the given one of the one or more collections.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein, in the operation of computing an intermediate utility function, the intermediate utility functions for each collection of applications are updated each time the placement of any application within the associated collection is changed as the algorithm progresses.

18. A method for making a computer implemented process for the management of a system of heterogeneous applications comprising the steps of:

instantiating first computer instructions onto a non-transitory computer readable medium, the first computer instructions configured to classify a plurality of applications into a plurality of application types, wherein the plurality of applications comprises heterogeneous applications, and the heterogeneous applications comprise at least one interactive workload-type application and at least one non-interactive workload-type application;

instantiating second computer instructions onto a non-transitory computer readable medium, the second computer instructions configured to classify one or more of the plurality of applications in each of the plurality of application types into one or more collections;

instantiating third computer instructions onto a non-transitory computer readable medium, the third computer instructions configured to compute a utility function of possible resource allocations for each of the one or more collections comprising the steps of;

(i) obtaining an execution profile for each of the plurality of applications in a given one of the one or more collections;

(ii) obtaining management policies for each of the plurality of applications; and

(iii) computing the utility function for the given one of the collections in accordance with the execution profiles for the plurality of applications, service level agreement goals for the plurality of applications, and a state of the system;

instantiating fourth computer instructions onto a non-transitory computer readable medium, the fourth computer instructions configured to compute an application placement that optimizes a global utility of the plurality of applications in accordance with the one or more utility functions; and

instantiating fifth computer instructions onto a non-transitory computer readable medium, the fifth computer instructions configured to modify placement and resource allocation of the plurality of applications in the system in accordance with the application placement;

wherein an execution profile for a given interactive workload-type application comprises an average number of processor cycles consumed by requests of a given flow associated with the given interactive workload-type application, and an execution profile for a given non-interactive workload-type application comprises the number of processor cycles used to complete a job associated with the given non-interactive workload-type application, the number of threads used by the job, and the maximum processor speed at which the job progresses.