METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR USING VIRTUAL MACHINE TECHNOLOGY FOR MANAGING PARALLEL COMMUNICATING APPLICATIONS

• US 20080184229A1
• Filed: 04/04/2008
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Saba, Dehanjan, Shaikh, Anees A., Sahu, Sambit, Rosu, Marcel-Catalin
• Granted Patent: US 8,713,564 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration

Abstract

A method (and system) for managing a distributed-memory parallel application running on multiple servers, includes dynamically moving a plurality of executable program components, where each of the plurality of executable program components are running on one of a plurality of virtual machines, using migration of the virtual machines between physical servers. The load balancing is operated based on a workload of each of the virtual machines and servers, where a virtual machine, or a plurality of virtual machines, are transferred to balance the workload between each of the servers.

Claims

1. A method of managing a distributed-memory parallel application running on multiple servers, comprising:

dynamically moving a plurality of executable program components, said plurality of executable program components running on one of a plurality of virtual machines, said moving using migration of the virtual machines between physical servers.

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

dynamically load balancing at an application level to work in conjunction with said moving a plurality of executable program components.

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

partitioning the application among specific ones of said executable program components based on application-defined partition boundaries.

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

packaging said executable program components into one of said plurality of virtual machines.

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

assigning each of said plurality of virtual machines to one of the physical servers according to a deployment strategy.

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

monitoring an operation of each virtual machine of said plurality of virtual machines.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said monitoring comprises determining if there is an imbalance in a workload of each of the servers.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein said monitoring comprises determining if at least one of the servers is overloaded.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein said monitoring comprises determining if at least one of the servers is underloaded.

10. The method according to claim 6, wherein said monitoring comprises determining whether application performance can be improved.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said determining includes determining whether a communication latency between virtual machines is reduced.

12. The method according to claim 6, wherein said monitoring comprises determining whether current virtual machine assignment violates administrative policy.

13. The method according to claim 7, wherein if there is an imbalance in said workload of each of the servers, at least one of said virtual machines is migrated from a first server to a second server to balance the workload.

14. The method according to claim 8, wherein if at least one of the servers is overloaded, a new server is added to the multiple servers, and at least one of said virtual machines, from an overloaded server, is migrated to said new server.

15. The method according to claim 9, wherein if at least one of the servers is underloaded, at least one of said virtual machines is migrated and at least one of the servers is removed.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein said at least one of the servers that is removed is powered down.

17. The method according to claim 15, wherein said at least one of the servers that is removed is allocated to another application.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein said another application comprises a distributed-memory application comprising a plurality of executable program components running on one of a plurality of virtual machines.

19. The method according to claim 11, wherein at least one of said virtual machines is migrated to a new server to reduce said communication latency between virtual machines.

20. The method according to claim 12, wherein at least of said virtual machines is migrated to a new server to conform to said administrative policy.

21. A method of designing a multiple user game running on multiple servers, comprising the method of claim 1.

32. A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform a method of managing a distributed-memory parallel application running on multiple servers, according to claim 1.

33. A method for deploying computing infrastructure, comprising integrating computer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the computer readable code in combination with the computing system is capable of performing a method of managing a distributed-memory parallel application running on multiple servers according to claim 1.

34. The method for deploying computing infrastructure according to claim 33, further comprising:

designing and developing application-level dynamic load balancing for said distributed-memory parallel application.

35. The method for deploying computing infrastructure according to claim 34, further comprising:

running said parallel application including a plurality of executable program components on a plurality of physical severs and using application-level mechanisms for load balancing.

36. The method for deploying computing infrastructure according to claim 35, further comprising:

running said parallel application including a plurality of executable program components on a plurality of physical servers and using a plurality of virtual machines on at least one of said physical servers and mechanisms at the application-level for dynamic load balancing and at the virtual machine level for virtual machine movement.

22. A computer system, comprising:

multiple servers running a distributed-memory parallel application; and

means for dynamically moving a plurality of executable program components of said parallel application, each of said plurality of executable program components running on one of a plurality of virtual machines.

23. The computer system according to claim 22, further comprising:

dynamically moving based on application-level mechanisms to work in conjunction with said moving a plurality of executable program components.

24. The computer system according to claim 22, further comprising:

partitioning the application among specific ones of said executable program components based on application-defined partition boundaries.

25. The computer system according to claim 22, further comprising:

packaging said executable program components into one of said plurality of virtual machines.

26. The computer system according to claim 22, further comprising:

assigning said plurality of virtual machines to one of the physical servers according to a deployment strategy.

27. The computer system according to claim 22, further comprising:

monitoring an operation of said plurality of virtual machines.

28. A computer system, comprising:

an application design unit that designs a distributed-memory parallel application;

an application partition unit that partitions said application into a plurality of executable program components;

a packaging unit that packages said executable program components into one of said plurality of virtual machines;

an assignment unit that assigns said plurality of virtual machines to one of a plurality of physical servers;

a virtual machine monitoring unit that monitors an operation of said plurality of virtual machines; and

a moving unit that shifts a first virtual machine of said plurality of virtual machines from a first physical server to a second physical server.

29. The computer system according to claim 28, further comprising:

dynamically load balancing at an application-level to work in conjunction with said dynamically load balancing a plurality of executable programs.

30. The computer system according to claim 28, further comprising:

partitioning the application among specific ones of said executable programs based on application-defined partition boundaries.

31. The computer system according to claim 28, further comprising:

packaging each of said executable programs into one of said plurality of virtual machines.

37. A system for managing a distributed-memory parallel application, comprising:

a plurality of servers;

a plurality of virtual machines, each virtual machine respectively operating a portion of the application; and

a virtual machine monitoring and migrating unit that monitors an operation of said plurality of virtual machines and shifting said virtual machines between said plurality of servers to balance the workload.