Optimizing on demand allocation of virtual machines using a stateless preallocation pool

• US 9,229,710 B2
• Filed: 05/19/2010
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Arasaratnam, Omkharan
• Primary Examiner(s): Behncke, Christine
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gills, Kurtis
• Application Number:
  US12/782,743
• Publication Number:
  US 20110029970A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,057 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/00 Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units program control for peripheral devices G06F13/10
• 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

A method, computer system, and computer program product for allocating virtual machines in a stateless preallocation pool on a computing device is provided. In response to determining that a virtual machine is to be removed from an active pool in a computing device, it is determined whether the virtual machine is to be moved to a preallocation pool of the computing device. In response to determining that the virtual machine is to be moved to the preallocation pool, the virtual machine is cleansed of stateful data by removing unique information about the virtual machine'"'"'s prior allocation while in the active pool. The virtual machine is moved to the preallocation pool. In response to determining that the virtual machine is needed in the active pool, the virtual machine is moved from the preallocation pool to the active pool.

Claims

1. A method for allocating virtual machines in a stateless preallocation pool on a computing device, comprising:

moving a virtual machine to a preallocation pool of a computing device after removal of the virtual machine from an active pool in the computing device, the virtual machine including stateful data and non-state data;

cleansing the virtual machine of the stateful data, the stateful data comprising unique information about the virtual machine'"'"'s prior allocation while in the active pool, wherein the non-state data of the virtual machine is maintained in the virtual machine after the cleansing;

moving the virtual machine to the preallocation pool; and

moving the virtual machine from the preallocation pool back to the active pool when the virtual machine is needed in the active pool.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine is moved to the preallocation pool to maintain a constant ratio of different types of virtual machines in the preallocation pool.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the virtual machine moved to the preallocation pool maintains the constant ratio of different types of virtual machines.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the virtual machine is one of the different types of virtual machines, and wherein moving the virtual machine to the preallocation pool causes the preallocation pool to maintain the constant ratio among the different types of virtual machines.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the different types of virtual machines are configured to respectively have different functionality.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the constant ratio of different types of virtual machines comprises a first total number of first different virtual machines to a second total number of second different virtual machines to a N total number of N different virtual machines, wherein N represents a last number in a sequence of numbers.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein virtual machine is moved to the preallocation pool to maintain a constant amount of virtual machines in the preallocation pool to support current workload requests and to support future expected workload requests.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the expected workload requests are derived from historical data so that the expected workload requests in the future are predicted based on the historical data.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein when a plurality of virtual machines are moved from the active pool to the preallocation pool, each of the virtual machines in the plurality of virtual machines is cleansed of stateful data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein cleansing the virtual machine of stateful data comprises removing from the virtual machine at least one of:

application data, cache data, or tables.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein after the cleansing of the virtual machine of stateful data, the remaining non-state data comprises an operating system of the virtual machine or a database management system software of the virtual machine.

12. A computing system for allocating virtual machines in a stateless preallocation pool, comprising:

at least one computing device for storing a program operative for;

moving a virtual machine to a preallocation pool of the computing device after removal of the virtual machine from an active pool in the computing device, the virtual machine including stateful data and non-state data;

cleansing the virtual machine of the stateful data, the stateful data comprising unique information about the virtual machine'"'"'s prior allocation while in the active pool, wherein the non-state data of the virtual machine is maintained in the virtual machine after the cleansing;

moving the virtual machine to the preallocation pool; and

moving the virtual machine from the preallocation pool back to the active pool when the virtual machine is needed in the active pool.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the virtual machine is moved to the preallocation pool to maintain a constant ratio of different types of virtual machines in the preallocation pool.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the virtual machine moved to the preallocation pool maintains the constant ratio of different types of virtual machines.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the virtual machine is one of the different types of virtual machines, and wherein moving the virtual machine to the preallocation pool causes the preallocation pool to maintain the constant ratio among the different types of virtual machines.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the different types of virtual machines are configured to respectively have different functionality.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the constant ratio of different types of virtual machines comprises a first total number of first different virtual machines to a second total number of second different virtual machines to a N total number of N different virtual machines, wherein N represents a last number in a sequence of numbers.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the virtual machine is moved to the preallocation pool to maintain a constant amount of virtual machines in the preallocation pool to support a current workload requests and to support future expected workload requests.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein when a plurality of virtual machines are moved from the active pool to the preallocation pool, each of the virtual machines in the plurality of virtual machines is cleansed of stateful data.

20. The system of claim 12, wherein cleansing the virtual machine of stateful data comprises removing from the virtual machine at least one of:

application data, cache data, or tables.

21. The system of claim 12, wherein after the cleansing of the virtual machine of stateful data, the remaining non-state data comprises an operating system of the virtual machine or a database management system software of the virtual machine.

22. A computer program product, stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the computer program product including instructions for causing a computer to execute a method for allocating virtual machines in a stateless preallocation pool, comprising:

moving a virtual machine to a preallocation pool of a computing device after removal of the virtual machine from an active pool in the computing device, the virtual machine including stateful data and non-state data;

cleansing the virtual machine of the stateful data, the stateful data comprising unique information about the virtual machine'"'"'s prior allocation while in the active pool, wherein the non-state data of the virtual machine is maintained in the virtual machine after the cleansing;

moving the virtual machine to the preallocation pool; and

moving the virtual machine from the preallocation pool back to the active pool when the virtual machine is needed in the active pool.