Placement of virtual machines on physical hosts based on collocation rules

• US 9,886,176 B2
• Filed: 05/21/2015
• Issued: 02/06/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cropper, Joseph W., Mulsow, Jennifer D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Wei
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bourzik, Brahim
• Application Number:
  US14/718,308
• Publication Number:
  US 20160342438A1
• Time in Patent Office: 992 Days
• Field of Search: 718 1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• 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

Placement of virtual machines on physical hosts is based on collocation rules with situational enforcement policies set by a system administrator to increase flexibility in rule enforcement and to more efficiently utilize system resources. A scheduler mechanism allows a system administrator to select different collocation rules and situational enforcement policies for a group of virtual machines. The scheduler mechanism utilizes the collocation rules and the situational enforcement policies to place the virtual machines.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory coupled to the at least one processor;

a scheduler mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor that places a plurality of virtual machines in a plurality of groups on a physical host computer system based on a plurality of collocation rules,

wherein the scheduler mechanism is part of a management layer of a cloud computing environment;

wherein the plurality of collocation rules comprise a rule for each group of the plurality groups chosen from one of the following;

affinity rule, and anti-affinity rule;

wherein the plurality of collocation rules further comprise a plurality of situational enforcement policies for each group of the plurality groups,

wherein the plurality of situational enforcement policies include a situational enforcement policy for each of a plurality of situations and wherein the plurality of situational enforcement policies indicate how to enforce placement of the plurality of virtual machines in the group depending on the plurality of situations,

wherein each of the plurality of situational enforcement polices indicates a hard policy enforcement or a soft policy enforcement for a corresponding situation,

wherein the plurality of situations for the situational enforcement policies comprise the following;

live migration, cold migration, rebuild, and evacuation; and

wherein a system administrator is allowed to select a situational enforcement policy type chosen from;

hard policy enforcement that indicates to strictly enforce the collocation rule, and soft policy enforcement that indicates strict enforcement of the collocation rule is not required.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scheduler mechanism allows the system administrator to define the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group using a graphical user interface.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the physical host computer system is part of a cloud computing environment.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scheduler mechanism provides the system administrator with a selection of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group for the plurality of situations.

5. A computer-readable article of manufacture comprising:

a scheduler mechanism that places a plurality of virtual machines in a plurality of groups on a physical host computer system based on a plurality of collocation rules,

wherein the scheduler mechanism is part of a management layer of a cloud computing environment;

wherein the plurality of collocation rules comprise a rule for each group of the plurality groups chosen from one of the following;

affinity rule, and anti-affinity rule;

wherein the plurality of collocation rules further comprise a plurality of situational enforcement policies for each group of the plurality groups,

wherein the plurality of situational enforcement policies include a situational enforcement policy for each of a plurality of situations and wherein the plurality of situational enforcement policies indicate how to enforce placement of the plurality of virtual machines in the group depending on the plurality of situations,

wherein each of the plurality of situational enforcement polices indicates a hard policy enforcement or a soft policy enforcement for a corresponding situation;

wherein the plurality of situations for the situational enforcement policies comprise the following;

live migration, cold migration, rebuild, and evacuation;

wherein a system administrator is allowed to select a situational enforcement policy type chosen from;

hard policy enforcement that indicates to strictly enforce the collocation rule, and soft policy enforcement that indicates strict enforcement of the collocation rule is not required;

and non-transitory computer recordable media bearing the scheduler mechanism.

6. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the scheduler mechanism allows a system administrator to define the collocation rule and the plurality of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group using a graphical user interface.

7. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the physical host computer system is part of a cloud computing environment.

8. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the scheduler mechanism provides a system administrator with a selection of situational enforcement policies for the virtual machine group for the plurality of situations.