On-demand utility services utilizing yield management

Abstract

Techniques for provision of on-demand utility services utilizing a yield management framework are disclosed. For example, in one illustrative aspect of the invention, a system for managing one or more computing resources associated with a computing center comprises: (i) a resource management subsystem for managing the one or more computing resources associated with the computing center, wherein the computing center is able to provide one or more computing services in response to one or more customer demands; and (ii) a yield management subsystem coupled to the resource management subsystem, wherein the yield management subsystem optimizes provision of the one or more computing services in accordance with the resource management subsystem and the one or more computing resources.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to techniques for provision of on-demand utility services and, more particularly, to techniques for provision of on-demand utility services utilizing a yield management framework. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] It is known that a group of computing resources that perform one or more related functions may be referred to as a “computing center.” Typically, a computing center may be composed of a number of processor resources (e.g., servers), disk storage, applications, software tools, and internal communication links between the various devices and with the external clients. Clients send their jobs to the system through an external network and jobs are queued and processed through the system. Results may be received by clients during the process or only at the end of the process. Computing centers may take on a number of forms such as, for example, web server farms, scientific computing centers, or on-demand facilities fo...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] The yield management subsystem may further comprise a service level agreement advisor which adds one or more customer-specific service requirements to the scheduling of a workload of a customer on a virtual cluster allocated to that customer. The one or more computing services may comprise one or more on-demand utility services. The yield management reservation subsystem may be further operative to offer more than one price for the same service level, where prices are offered

Problems solved by technology

However, no existing resource management system associated with such computing centers incorporates yield management techniques.

In particular, there is no such system that considers global objectives and makes use of a possibly high degree of price and demand segmentation to achieve those objectives and links them with the operation (e.g., resource allocation, scheduling, monitoring) of the computing center.

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