Estimating migration costs for migrating logical partitions within a virtualized computing environment based on a migration cost history

• US 9,229,764 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2015
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• 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): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): WU, BENJAMIN C
• Application Number:
  US14/790,889
• Publication Number:
  US 20150309830A1
• Time in Patent Office: 187 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455

Abstract

Responsive to a hypervisor determining that insufficient local resources are available for reservation to meet a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request for a particular logical partition managed by the hypervisor in a host system, the hypervisor identifies another logical partition managed by the hypervisor in the host system that is assigned at the least one resource meeting the performance parameter specified in the reservation request. The hypervisor estimates a first cost of migrating the particular logical partition and a second cost of migrating the another logical partition to at least one other host system communicatively connected in a peer-to-peer network based on at least one previously recorded cost stored by the host system of migrating a previous logical partition to the at least one other host system.

Claims

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

responsive to a hypervisor determining that insufficient local resources are available for reservation to meet a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request for a particular logical partition managed by the hypervisor in a host system, identifying another logical partition managed by the hypervisor in the host system that is assigned at the least one resource meeting the performance parameter specified in the reservation request;

estimating, by the hypervisor, a first cost of migrating the particular logical partition and a second cost of migrating the another logical partition to at least one other host system communicatively connected in a peer-to-peer network based on at least one previously recorded cost stored by the host system of migrating a previous logical partition to the at least one other host system by;

identifying a plurality of previously recorded costs for migrations to the at least one other host system;

identifying a pricing policy applied by the host system;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an average pricing policy, selecting a mean cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an optimist pricing policy, selecting a best case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising a pessimist pricing policy, selecting a worst case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

selecting, by the hypervisor, one of the particular logical partition and the another logical partition as a migration candidate based on a comparison of the first cost with the second cost, wherein the hypervisor negotiates for offers to migrate the migration candidate to the at least one other host system.

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

negotiating, by the hypervisor, to reserve at least one available local resource in the host system that meets the performance parameter for the at least one resource specified in the reservation request by the particular logical partition from among a plurality of 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 from the particular logical partition; and

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 migration candidate to the at least one other host system, 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.

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

broadcasting a request for bids for migrating the migration candidate to the at least one other host system communicatively connected without a central management device in the peer-to-peer network;

responsive to receiving at least one offer from at least one of the at least one other host system, selecting a particular offer from among the at least one offer from a selected remote host system from among the at least one other host system;

migrating the migration candidate logical partition to the selected remote host system via the peer-to-peer network; and

responsive to migrating the another logical partition marked as the migration candidate, reserving at least one freed resource previously assigned to the another logical partition for satisfying the reservation request for the particular logical partition.

5. The computer system according to claim 3, the stored program instructions further comprising:

program instructions, responsive to receiving a logical partition migration with a migration data header, to remove, by a partition controller of the hypervisor, the migration data header from the logical partition migration;

program instructions to decode, by a cost estimator of the host system, the migration data header into at least one identifier of at least one of a source host system, a destination host system, and a logical partition and at least one cost of at least one of an estimated cost and an actual cost; and

program instructions to store, by the cost estimator, the decoded migration data header in a history table comprising a plurality of records of migration costs for at least one migration from the host system to at least one of the at least one other host system and the at least one previously recorded migration cost.

6. The computer system according to claim 3, the stored program instructions further comprising:

program instructions to negotiate to reserve at least one available local resource in the host system that meets the performance parameter for the at least one resource specified in the reservation request by the particular logical partition from among a plurality of 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 from the particular logical partition; and

program instructions, responsive to determining that the at least one available resource is not available in the host system, to negotiate for offers to migrate the migration candidate to the at least one other host system, 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.

7. The computer system according to claim 3, the stored program instructions further comprising:

program instructions to broadcast a request for bids for migrating the migration candidate to the at least one other host system;

program instructions, responsive to receiving at least one offer from at least one of the at least one other host system, to select a particular offer from among the at least one offer from a selected remote host system from among the at least one other host system;

program instructions to migrate the migration candidate logical partition to the selected remote host system; and

program instructions, responsive to migrating the another logical partition marked as the migration candidate, to reserve at least one freed resource previously assigned to the another logical partition for satisfying the reservation request for the particular logical partition.

4. A computer system comprising one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories, one or more computer-readable storage devices, and program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, for execution by at least one of the one or more processors via at least one of the one or more memories, the stored program instructions comprising:

program instructions, responsive to a hypervisor determining that insufficient local resources are available for reservation to meet a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request for a particular logical partition managed by the hypervisor in a host system, to identify another logical partition managed by the hypervisor in the host system that is assigned at the least one resource meeting the performance parameter specified in the reservation request;

program instructions to estimate, by the hypervisor, a first cost of migrating the particular logical partition and a second cost of migrating the another logical partition to at least one other host system communicatively connected in a peer-to-peer network based on at least one previously recorded cost stored by the host system of migrating a previous logical partition to the at least one other host system by;

identifying a plurality of previously recorded costs for migrations to the at least one other host system;

identifying a pricing policy applied by the host system;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an average pricing policy, selecting a mean cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an optimist pricing policy, selecting a best case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising a pessimist pricing policy, selecting a worst case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

program instructions to select, by the hypervisor, one of the particular logical partition and the another logical partition as a migration candidate based on a comparison of the first cost with the second cost, wherein the hypervisor negotiates for offers to migrate the migration candidate to the at least one other host system.

8. A computer program product comprising one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage devices and program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, the stored program instructions comprising:

program instructions, responsive to a hypervisor determining that insufficient local resources are available for reservation to meet a performance parameter for at least one resource specified in a reservation request for a particular logical partition managed by the hypervisor in a host system, to identify another logical partition managed by the hypervisor in the host system that is assigned at the least one resource meeting the performance parameter specified in the reservation request;

program instructions to estimate, by the hypervisor, a first cost of migrating the particular logical partition and a second cost of migrating the another logical partition to at least one other host system communicatively connected in a peer-to-peer network based on at least one previously recorded cost stored by the host system of migrating a previous logical partition to the at least one other host system by;

identifying a plurality of previously recorded costs for migrations to the at least one other host system;

identifying a pricing policy applied by the host system;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an average pricing policy, selecting a mean cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost;

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising an optimist pricing policy, selecting a best case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

responsive to the host system applying the pricing policy comprising a pessimist pricing policy, selecting a worst case cost of the plurality of previously recorded costs to estimate the first cost and the second cost; and

program instructions to select, by the hypervisor, one of the particular logical partition and the another logical partition as a migration candidate based on a comparison of the first cost with the second cost, wherein the hypervisor negotiates for offers to migrate the migration candidate to the at least one other host system.