Systems and methods for dynamically managing virtual machines

Abstract

Techniques for dynamic management of virtual machine environments are disclosed. For example, a technique for automatically managing a first set of virtual machines being hosted by a second set of physical machines comprises the following steps / operations. An alert is obtained that a service level agreement (SLA) pertaining to at least one application being hosted by at least one of the virtual machines in the first set of virtual machines is being violated. Upon obtaining the SLA violation alert, the technique obtains at least one performance measurement for at least a portion of the machines in at least one of the first set of virtual machines and the second set of physical machines, and a cost of migration for at least a portion of the virtual machines in the first set of virtual machines. Based on the obtained performance measurements and the obtained migration costs, an optimal migration policy is determined for moving the virtual machine hosting the at least one application to another physical machine.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] This present invention generally relates to virtual machine environments and, more particularly, to techniques for dynamically managing virtual machines. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] An important problem encountered in today's information technology (IT) environment is known as server sprawl. Because of unplanned growth, many data centers today have large numbers of heterogeneous servers, each hosting one application and often grossly under utilized. [0003] A solution to this problem is a technique known as server consolidation. In general, server consolidation involves converting each physical server or physical machine into a virtual server or virtual machine (VM), and then mapping multiple VMs to a physical machine, thus increasing utilization and reducing the required number of physical machines. [0004] There are some critical runtime issues associated with a consolidated server environment. For example, due to user application workload change...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

An important problem encountered in today's information technology (IT) environment is known as server sprawl.

Because of unplanned growth, many data centers today have large numbers of heterogeneous servers, each hosting one application and often grossly under utilized.

There are some critical runtime issues associated with a consolidated server environment.

For example, due to user application workload changes or fluctuations, a critical problem often arises in these environments.

The critical problem is that end user application performance degrades due to over utilization of critical resources in some of the physical machines.

Accordingly, an existing allocation of VMs to physical machines may no longer satisfy service level agreement (SLA) requirements.

However, such a reallocation has an associated migration cost.

Existing consolidation approaches do not account for the cost of migration.

Images