Virtual Processor Pool Weight Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managing CPU guarantees in multitenant cloud environments is complex, especially when clients need to adjust the weights or add/remove logical partitions while maintaining a consistent level of CPU horsepower, which can be cumbersome due to varying CPU requirements and priorities across multiple clients.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of virtual processor pools allows clients to assign weights to their logical partitions within a virtual pool, enabling dynamic management of CPU resources without segregating physical processors, allowing for workload migration and efficient resource allocation across multiple virtual pools on a single server.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate software instances operate for different tenants (multi-instance architecture), then each tenant gets dedicated resources and isolation, but system complexity and resource utilization efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple tenant software instances into a single shared software instance that serves multiple tenants simultaneously. This consolidation reduces system complexity by eliminating the need for separate software deployments while maintaining tenant isolation through virtualization and resource pooling mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The shared software instance is designed to be universal, capable of serving multiple tenants with different requirements through configuration and resource allocation mechanisms. This multi-functional approach allows one software instance to replace multiple dedicated instances, improving resource utilization while maintaining tenant-specific functionality.
2Productivity
If CPU resources are dynamically allocated among multiple tenants in a shared instance, then resource utilization efficiency improves, but guaranteeing specific CPU horsepower to each tenant becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the shared CPU pool into virtual CPU pools, each associated with specific tenants or tenant groups. This segmentation allows independent management and allocation of CPU resources to different tenants while maintaining overall resource pooling, simplifying the guarantee of specific CPU horsepower to each tenant through defined virtual pool boundaries.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces virtual CPU pools as an intermediary layer between physical CPU resources and tenant requirements. This intermediate abstraction layer simplifies CPU management by providing a buffer that translates physical resource allocation into tenant-specific guarantees, reducing the complexity of direct CPU management while maintaining resource utilization efficiency.
3Adaptability or versatility
If weights are adjusted for logical partitions to change priority, then resource allocation flexibility improves, but managing weights across all active partitions becomes cumbersome
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the set of all logical partitions into multiple virtual CPU pools, where each pool manages a subset of partitions independently. This segmentation allows weight adjustments to be made within each virtual pool without affecting other pools, making weight management less cumbersome while maintaining allocation flexibility across the entire system.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual CPU pool acts as an intermediary that manages weight assignments for logical partitions. By introducing this intermediate management layer, the system simplifies weight adjustment operations—administrators can modify weights within virtual pools without needing to recalculate or reconsider the entire set of active partitions, thus improving ease of operation while preserving allocation flexibility.
4Reliability
If physical processors are segregated into dedicated pools for each tenant, then CPU guarantee reliability improves, but resource sharing and workload migration between tenants deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges physical processors into a unified pool that serves multiple tenants through virtualization, rather than physically segregating them into dedicated pools. This consolidation maintains CPU guarantee reliability through virtual pool assignments and weight-based scheduling while enabling workload migration between tenants by allowing dynamic resource allocation from the shared physical pool.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer implemented method for managing virtual processor pools includes identifying a set of available system resources, defining a set of virtual resource pools, assigning one or more system resources of the set of identified system resources to one or more virtual pools of the set of virtual resource pools, creating a plurality of logical partitions within a first virtual resource pool of the set of virtual resource pools, wherein each logical partition of the plurality of logical partitions specifies a weight relative to other partitions in the first virtual resource pool, receiving a request for additional resources from the first virtual resource pool, and allowing the first virtual resource pool to access an unused resource from a second virtual resource pool of the set of virtual resource pools. A computer program product and computer system corresponding to the method are also disclosed herein.