Resource allocation using entitlement hints

• US 20130081043A1
• Filed: 09/24/2011
• Published: 03/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Elwha LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Glew, Andrew F., Gerrity, Daniel A., Tegreene, Clarence T.
• Granted Patent: US 9,471,373 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5021 Priority
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/504 Resource capping
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/507 Low-level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1263 based on job priority, e.g. re-arranging the order of jobs, e.g. the printing sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30076 to perform miscellaneous control operations, e.g. NOP
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3836 Instruction issuing, e.g. dynamic instruction scheduling or out of order instruction execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5094 where the allocation takes into account power or heat criteria power management in computers in general G06F1/3203; thermal management in computers in general G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

An embodiment of an information handling apparatus can comprise an entitlement vector operable to specify resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects, and logic operable to issue a hint instruction based on the entitlement vector for usage in scheduling the resources.

Claims

1. An information handling apparatus comprising:

an entitlement vector operable to specify resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects; and

logic operable to issue a hint instruction based on the entitlement vector for usage in scheduling the resources.

2. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the entitlement vector is operable to specify resources and capabilities used by the at least one object.

3. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the entitlement vector is operable to ascertain and specify resources and capabilities used by the at least one object.

4. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the plurality of resources comprises physical/logical resources and operational resources.

5. The information handling apparatus according to claim 4 wherein the physical/logical resources are at least one of a group consisting of physical and/or logical instances of:

processors, central processing units (CPUs), graphics hardware, network controllers, memory, memory management, hardware, microarchitecture, sound cards, video cards, network interfaces, instruction set architecture (ISA), library calls, library functions, software objects, compilers, and operating systems.

6. The information handling apparatus according to claim 4 wherein the operational resources are at least one of a group consisting of:

power, voltage, current, electrons, frequency, execution cycles, battery consumption, battery life, constraints, temperature, and measurable phenomena.

7. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects, and operable to set the entitlement vector in accordance with the ascertained and specified resources.

8. The information handling apparatus according to claim 7 wherein:

the logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities used by an object of the plurality of objects and further operable to set the entitlement vector according to the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

9. The information handling apparatus according to claim 7 wherein:

the logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities included in a library and operable to request the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

10. The information handling apparatus according to claim 7 wherein:

the logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities is included in a library and operable to request preferential scheduling of the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

11. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

a library comprising a plurality of functions and components operable to handle the plurality of objects;

wherein the entitlement vector is operable to assign entitlement to at least one of a plurality of resources to selected ones of the plurality of functions and components, and wherein the entitlement is specified as predetermined rights wherein a process of a plurality of processes is entitled to a predetermined percentage of operational resources.

12. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the hint instruction activates the entitlement vector as a request for resources and is applied to hardware which uses the entitlement vector for scheduling of the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

13. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the hint instruction is operable to power down hardware in a condition that the entitlement vector indicates the hardware is not used by the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

14. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 wherein:

the hint instruction is operable as a predictive hint designating resources which are predicted to be used by the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

15. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

resource allocation logic operable to dynamically modify the entitlement vector according to usage of resources by the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects, wherein the hint instruction supplies the entitlement vector.

16. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

a scheduler operable to schedule a process of a plurality of processes based on the entitlement.

17. The information handling apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising:

a scheduler operable to schedule a thread of a plurality of threads in a multi-threaded environment based on the entitlement.

18. An information handling apparatus comprising:

logic operable to receive a hint instruction comprising an entitlement vector that specifies resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects; and

resource allocation logic operable to dynamically modify the entitlement vector according to usage of resources by the at least one object of the plurality of a plurality of objects.

19. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 wherein:

the resources comprise physical/logical resources and operational resources;

the physical/logical resources comprise at least one of a group consisting of physical and/or logical instances of;

processors, central processing units (CPUs), graphics hardware, network controllers, memory, memory management, hardware, microarchitecture, sound cards, video cards, network interfaces, instruction set architecture (ISA), library calls, library functions, software objects, compilers, and operating systems; and

the operational resources comprise at least one of a group consisting of;

power, voltage, current, electrons, frequency, execution cycles, battery consumption, battery life, constraints, temperature, and measurable phenomena.

20. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 wherein:

the entitlement vector is operable to ascertain and specify resources and capabilities used by the at least one object.

21. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 further comprising:

logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects, and operable to set the entitlement vector in accordance with the ascertained and specified resources.

22. The information handling apparatus according to claim 21 wherein:

the logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities used by an object of the plurality of objects and further operable to set the entitlement vector according to the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

23. The information handling apparatus according to claim 21 wherein:

the logic operable to ascertain and specify the resources is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities included in a library and operable to request the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

24. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 further comprising:

a library comprising a plurality of functions and components operable to handle the plurality of objects;

wherein the entitlement vector is operable to assign entitlement to at least one of a plurality of resources to selected ones of the plurality of functions and components, and wherein the entitlement is specified as predetermined rights wherein a process of a plurality of processes is entitled to a predetermined percentage of operational resources.

25. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 wherein:

the hint instruction activates the entitlement vector as a request for resources and is applied to hardware which uses the entitlement vector for scheduling of the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

26. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 wherein:

the hint instruction is operable to power down hardware in a condition that the entitlement vector indicates the hardware is not used by the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

27. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 wherein:

the hint instruction is operable as a predictive hint designating resources which are predicted to be used by the at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects.

28. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 further comprising:

a scheduler operable to schedule a process of a plurality of processes based on the entitlement.

29. The information handling apparatus according to claim 18 further comprising:

a scheduler operable to schedule a thread of a plurality of threads in a multi-threaded environment based on the entitlement.

30. An information handling apparatus comprising:

resource allocation logic operable to determine resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects; and

logic operable to set an entitlement vector based on the determination of resources and form a hint instruction as a function of the entitlement vector.

31. The information handling apparatus according to claim 30 wherein:

the resources comprise physical/logical resources and operational resources;

the physical/logical resources comprise at least one of a group consisting of physical and/or logical instances of;

processors, central processing units (CPUs), graphics hardware, network controllers, memory, memory management, hardware, microarchitecture, sound cards, video cards, network interfaces, instruction set architecture (ISA), library calls, library functions, software objects, compilers, and operating systems; and

the operational resources comprise at least one of a group consisting of;

power, voltage, current, electrons, frequency, execution cycles, battery consumption, battery life, constraints, temperature, and measurable phenomena.

32. The information handling apparatus according to claim 30 wherein:

the resource allocation logic is operable to ascertain and specify resources and capabilities used by the at least one object; and

the logic operable to set an entitlement vector is operable to set the entitlement vector based on the ascertained and specified resources and capabilities used by the at least one object.

33. The information handling apparatus according to claim 30 wherein:

the resource allocation logic is operable to ascertain and specify the resources used by at least one object of a plurality of a plurality of objects; and

the logic operable to set an entitlement vector is operable to set the entitlement vector in accordance with the ascertained and specified resources.

34. The information handling apparatus according to claim 30 wherein:

the resource allocation logic is operable to ascertain resources and/or capabilities used by an object of the plurality of objects; and

the logic operable to set an entitlement vector is operable to set the entitlement vector according to the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

35. The information handling apparatus according to claim 30 wherein:

the resource allocation logic is operable to ascertain and specify resources and/or capabilities included in a library; and

the logic operable to set an entitlement vector is operable to request the ascertained resources and/or capabilities.

36-88. -88. (canceled)