Timer Manager Instances for Virtualized System Resource Partitioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current processing systems face inefficiencies in managing large numbers of timers, particularly in highly virtualized environments where strict resource partitioning increases the demand for processing resources, leading to significant loading on general-purpose processors.
Innovation Solution
A dedicated timer manager controller offloads timer management tasks to a co-processor, creating and managing timer manager instances (TMIs) that implement timers, reducing the burden on general-purpose processors and allowing for efficient management of timers in a linked list structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If timer software manages large numbers of timers in a linked list, then the system can implement more timers than hardware counters, but the processing system requires significant processing resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments timer management into separate timer manager instances, each dedicated to managing timers for specific virtual machines or processes. This segmentation allows the system to manage large numbers of timers across multiple instances without overwhelming a single processing system, as each instance handles only its allocated timers independently
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces timer manager instances as intermediary components between the hardware timers and the virtualized processing systems. These instances act as mediators that offload timer management tasks from the main processing system, enabling efficient management of large timer quantities without directly consuming significant processing resources
2Stability of the object's composition
If strict resource partitioning is implemented in virtualized systems, then resource allocation is controlled, but the demand for processing resources dedicated to timer management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements segmentation by creating separate timer manager instances for each virtual machine or process, which enables strict resource partitioning. Each instance is isolated and manages only its assigned timers, providing stable and predictable resource allocation while maintaining control over processing resource consumption in virtualized environments
3Productivity
If a linked list of timers is maintained in time-ranked order, then timers can be efficiently processed, but the complexity of timer management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses timer manager instances as intermediary structures that encapsulate the complexity of maintaining time-ranked linked lists. Each timer manager instance handles its own timer list independently, providing a standardized interface that simplifies timer processing while managing the underlying complexity within isolated instances
Data Source
AI summary
A processing system includes a data processor, an input, an output, a memory, an operation parser, and a timer manager instance controller. The input receives create-timer-manager-instance (CTMI) commands identifying a number of timers supported by a timer manager instance. The output provides responses including a CTMI response associated with the CTMI command. The operation parser receives the CTMI command from the input. The timer manager instance controller receive a control input from the operation parser based upon the CTMI command, and in response, allocates a block of memory locations in the memory based on the number of timers and provides a CTMI response to the output to indicate that the CTMI response was executed by the timer manager instance controller.